


Earth Boys Are Easy

by Mireille



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:07:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21972595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: It had been a nice day. Things had been going well. Tony should never, ever have trusted that.Being insufficiently suspicious of "things going well" is how  you wind up dosed with sex pollen, stuck in the middle of nowhere with Loki (also dosed with sex pollen), and that's when things start getting complicated....
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Comments: 50
Kudos: 317





	1. Chapter One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has been completely written and about 75% edited, as of the posting of the first chapter. I'll be posting new chapters on Thursdays until it's done. (Those of you who've read my stuff before know that I'm pretty good at keeping the posting schedule.) 
> 
> And yes, it's yet another "Revengers plus Tony" fic, because I like that scenario much, much better than I like canon.

****

Tony should never have trusted that this would be a nice day.

It had definitely looked like one, back in the halcyon days of a couple of hours ago, when he and Loki had set off toward the point where Thor and the others would be waiting for them: a successful information-gathering mission behind them; a planet where they hadn't actually pissed off anyone powerful; a warm spring-like morning. 

All right, they'd had a ten-mile hike ahead of them to get to the rendezvous point, but it was only ten miles (Tony couldn't believe he'd reached a point in his life where he could describe a hike as "only ten miles," but space travel, at least the way Thor did it, involved a lot more walking than he'd expected). They had plenty of water with them in case the day got any warmer, and they weren't in any real hurry. 

They could even cut five miles or so off the hike if they wanted. They had to get a good distance away from the city (or at least, the one-horse town that passed for a city on this preindustrial planet) before they could risk Tony calling up his suit from its carefully-concealed nanotech housing. Loki's magic was just as risky; from the little Tony had read about this world's history in the ship's database, they didn't have warm and fuzzy feelings toward sorcerers here. But five miles along their planned route would get them well out of range of observers.

The locals' ignorance of technology and fear of magic was why the rendezvous point was so far out in the first place; there was a valley that made a good hiding place for a smallish ship. 

Tony hadn't even been thinking longingly of reaching the halfway point and being able to take the shortcut. He'd just been enjoying being out in the fresh air, after weeks of recycled atmosphere on the ship and then days in a town where the streets were paved with local-equivalent-of-a-horse shit. (Tony was going to pretend it was all _horse_ shit. He didn't consider himself squeamish, but he was from the era of indoor plumbing and fully embraced it.)

He'd even been enjoying the company, because Loki had been in an unusually good mood. For once, following a rumor that some of the scattered remaining Asgardians had been seen on a particular planet had paid off. They hadn't arrived just after the Asgardians had left--that had happened more than once--and they'd even been able to make contact. 

They were going to be able to tell Thor that the population of New Asgard would be going up by three once Thyra, Bodil, and Skarde--merchants who'd been out on a trade mission when Hela had returned--wrapped up their business here on Atheron and made their way to Earth. 

To think that Tony had almost refused Thor's invitation to join him on his search for missing Asgardians because Loki was part of the ship's crew. He'd understood, or thought he had, why Thor was taking Loki with him. He'd expected that Thor didn't trust his brother out of his sight for that long. He'd been wrong about Thor's reasoning, but it had made sense at the time.

Tony just hadn't relished the thought of spending months on a ship with Loki, of all people. Thor was fine, if a little much at times; Bruce was obviously more than okay company; Valkyrie had seemed all right. 

But Loki? The guy who'd tried to take over the world, who'd put a mind-whammy on Clint, who'd attempted to kill Tony by throwing him out of a window? That hadn't had much appeal at all. 

But the thought of putting actual light-years in between himself and the shambles of his life (half the Avengers wanted criminals, Pepper deciding they were better off calling it quits forever, Rhodey paralyzed because of Tony's bad decisions--and that was just the highlight reel) had been too tempting, and so he'd packed his bags and joined Thor and his "Revengers." They weren't doing a lot of revenging, as such, but then again, the Avengers hadn't done a lot of avenging, as such, either.

And over the past few months, Tony had realized a few things: one, he was in no hurry to get back to his old life; two, it was damn near suicidal to try to drink Valkyrie under the table; and three, Loki wasn't as bad as Tony had thought. 

Part of that was that Loki was a lot less... well, Bruce's "bag of cats" hadn't been a bad description of Loki's mental state when Tony had first met him, and it was a little more tactful than Tony's own choice of "completely bugfuck insane." 

He wasn't fighting Thor for the throne of Asgard or trying to take over the world, either, possibly because the throne of Asgard was a lot less impressive than it used to be, or maybe just because the time he'd spent pretending to be Odin had cured Loki of wanting to be in charge. 

Tony could have told him that running the show wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Better to find someone competent who actually enjoyed organizing things, put them in charge, and go off to explore the universe. 

Also, it turned out that if he wasn't trying to kill anyone, Loki could actually be fun to be around. Tony could enjoy a good joke, especially since most of Loki's recent mischief was aimed at Thor and Thor alone. He seemed to have a healthy respect for the damage that Valkyrie or the Hulk could do to him, and Tony's role had apparently become "appreciative audience." 

Besides, Loki might not have been an engineer or a scientist, but he was smart. Tony liked "smart," and "sarcastic," and "funny." Tony liked "tall, dark, and handsome," too, but he was well aware that in a small group like theirs, any relationships that weren't strictly platonic were a recipe for disaster. 

Not to mention that he wasn't sure whether "Hey, Loki, wanna fuck?" would get him thrown out of the nearest airlock, or just laughed at. On the one hand, his armor would protect him in space for a while, and one of the others would notice he was missing soon enough. On the other, his ego was easier to damage than his armor. 

Best to wait for that until he wouldn't mind going back to Earth for good. It'd be much easier to avoid one another that way, if it went wrong. When it went wrong, which would probably be about five nanoseconds after he opened his mouth. 

Right now, Tony had decided that he was just going to appreciate a day when everything seemed to be going his way. 

His resolution lasted for three minutes, tops. 

Tony wasn't paying that much attention to his surroundings, at least not in the sense of keeping watch for potential danger. He'd been enjoying the trees, the fields of tall grass, the birds overhead, and the sounds of small animals scampering around just out of sight. 

The path had led into the woods a few minutes ago; there were fewer birds, more squirrel-like things, and once something vaguely resembling a deer (it didn't look much like a deer, but it looked more like a deer than anything else) eating berries off some bushes near the path.

He'd never thought of himself as an outdoor person, unless "outdoors" included poolside bar service and cabana girls. Or cabana boys; he wasn't picky. But being on the ship for days and sometimes weeks at a time definitely made him appreciate the joys of breathing unrecycled air and seeing living things other than themselves. 

But not being on his guard meant that when Loki yelled, "Get out of the way," and shoved him aside, Tony was caught completely by surprise. He didn't even have a chance to catch his balance before he found himself sprawled in a heap on the ground. 

Tony rolled over onto his back, scrambling up enough to prop himself on his elbows so he could look around. His first instinct was to form his armor around him, but remembering in time that they were trying to conceal their tech, he forced back that instinct until he could see what was going on.

And what was going on was that Loki was blasting green magic at... a plant?

The forest path had led them into a clearing. Tony had been a few steps behind Loki--the path was narrow just here--so he hadn't seen until now that there were clumps of large plants growing there. They didn't look like any of the other local vegetation, which could have passed for Earth plants if you didn't look too closely. 

These plants had broad, waxy leaves, so dark green as to be almost black, and where Tony would have expected a flower, there was a cluster of paler-green tendrils--tentacles, Tony thought, and then reminded himself that these were shrubs, not squid--that seemed to move on their own accord, even without a hint of breeze. 

The tendrils were--fuck, they looked like they were reaching for Loki, who had his daggers in his hands now and was slashing at them. Tony concentrated briefly, forming his gauntlets and helping Loki to force the twining plants away by sending low-power blasts at them.

"I've got this," Loki shouted. "Get out of here, Stark, you have no idea what we're dealing with."

"Since when has that ever stopped me?" Tony yelled back, getting to his feet and coming to stand next to Loki at a distance he judged was just out of reach of the plants--unless they could stretch like old-style telephone cords, he thought, and wished he hadn't. 

"Just go," Loki told him, which heightened Tony's determination to stay right where he was. 

Their assault seemed to be working; the tendrils pulled back, returning to hang down by the side of the plant. The plants, plural--he realized now there had been more than one involved in the attack. 

With the tendrils no longer active, Tony could see there was a small--comparatively speaking, anyway--trumpet-shaped flower at the center of the clump of smoking, still-twitching fronds. It hadn't been visible before; Tony assumed he'd been too distracted by the surprise appearance of a plant that looked to have come straight out of the weirder kinds of animated porn to notice it. 

That comparison really didn't seem any less appropriate when the trumpet spat out a cloud of thick yellow pollen. 

And then Loki was shoving him again, harder this time, so that even though Tony was better braced for it now, he stumbled and fell again. "Stay down," Loki said. "Crawl out of here. Don't get their attention."

"It's spitting at us," Tony said in complete bewilderment, not moving. 

Loki slashed at the plant again, then, as he backed away out of striking range, he continued hitting it with those green blasts of magic. "Come on," he insisted, and this time, since Loki was getting out of the clearing as well, Tony was willing to follow. 

Though he'd be damned if he was going to crawl through a forest. He got up, stumbling after Loki. Dammit, he was getting old; ten years ago, his knees still wouldn't have liked hitting the ground twice in less than five minutes, but they wouldn't have been complaining so loudly. 

"What the hell were those things?" he demanded, when they'd left the clearing behind them, retracing their steps into the middle of the woods.

"Ligira plants," Loki said. He was breathing hard; Tony felt a little smug about that, since Loki frequently made fun of Tony's routine of jogging around the ship to keep himself in shape. But Loki kept talking, and Tony did want to know what the fuck those plants were, so he saved the mockery for later. "They're not native to this world. They're not even native to this sector," he added. "Someone's brought them here."

"Why?" Tony said. "Are they guarding something? They did attack us the second we walked into the clearing." 

Loki shook his head. He leaned back against a tree, bending over to rest his hands on his knees. He was still breathing a little faster than normal, and exertion, or just having his head down, had put more color in his face that Tony was used to seeing. It wasn't a bad look on him. 

"They could be used that way, I suppose," he said. "But they can't be trained. It's just instinct, to protect themselves from being eaten by animals. They're probably a crop." 

"Weird place for a farm." 

"Not if you're trying to keep it a secret."

"I guess not." Tony was glad they hadn't gone back out into the open; even in the shade, the weather was getting uncomfortably hot. He thought about putting on his armor for the climate-control features, but they were still too close to civilization. Instead, he loosened the collar of his shirt and pushed up his sleeves. That would do for now. 

"Hey," he said after a moment, "I should probably thank you. I mean, those plants could have spit acid or something instead of pollen, and then I'd have been screwed. And you were trying to get me out of the way, so... thanks?"

Loki snorted. "Acid? We should be so lucky." He straightened up, wiping at the streaks of yellow dust on his face, then frowned at Tony. "Did any of it hit you?" 

"What? Oh." Tony had gotten distracted somehow, watching Loki rub at the pollen on his cheek. Maybe he needed to drink some water; he got a little flaky sometimes when he let himself get dehydrated. 

He shrugged. "I don't know, maybe?" He glanced down at himself. "There's a streak on my shirt."

"Lovely," Loki muttered. "All right, Stark, we need to get moving. We're going to have to find some kind of shelter, and quickly." 

"Shelter? We're only a couple of hours from the rendezvous point, tops, and that's if we keep walking instead of flying or teleporting." He squinted up at the sky. "The sun's still pretty high. Even if we take it slow, we'll be there long before dark." 

The color hadn't faded from Loki's cheeks, and he was fidgeting with his own collar. Maybe he didn't tolerate heat all that well? It was definitely warmer than they'd been expecting. Tony was starting to sweat. 

Of course, if Loki wasn't wearing half a dozen layers of leather and fabric (Tony might have been exaggerating, but not by all that much), he might have been more comfortable. If he kept fooling with his collar, Tony might have to suggest that he just take the damn leather tunic off and see if it helped.

"Believe me," Loki said, "we aren't going to be traveling much further today." 

"What the hell is going on?" Tony said. "I mean, okay, we were attacked by the stupid plants, but neither of us got hurt or anything." He paused. "Wait, _did_ you get hurt? If you're injured and being too damn stubborn to tell me about it--" 

Loki shook his head. "I'm uninjured, but I'm not going to be capable of walking several more miles today, and you probably won't be either. We have a supply of drinking water and some food; we just need to find shelter from the elements." 

He looked around them, then nodded to himself. "This way, I think," he said, and started walking. 

Which meant that Tony had to run after him to keep up the argument. "What do you mean, you won't be able to walk? Is that stuff poisonous?"

Shit, Loki had a _lot_ of it on his face. They didn't have much in the way of first-aid supplies with them. The emergency kit in the bag slung around Tony's neck had bandages and painkillers, but nothing that could take care of poisoning by spitting tentacle-plant. And had he gotten any of it on his skin, or just his shirt? 

"No," Loki said. "There should be no lasting physical effects. Now, I thought I saw something when we passed this way earlier, but it was down a side path, and I can't recall precisely where."

"Never mind that right now," Tony said. "Explain."

"We've been drugged," Loki said. "I'll explain more when we stop, but right now, while we still can, let's see if we can find a safe place to spend the night." 

They walked for another quarter-mile or so, Loki not offering Tony any more explanation. He wasn't turning his head to look at Tony, either. 

For his own part, Tony wasn't sure he could stop looking at Loki. He was trying to figure out what the hell was going on, even though there weren't that many symptoms he could deduce by watching Loki's back. 

Was Loki going to pass out from whatever drug he'd been dosed with? Tony would probably be fine. He'd breathed a little of that pollen, probably, but Loki had knocked him out of the way pretty fast. Maybe he'd feel a little groggy? That'd be okay. He could sit and rest while Loki slept. 

He wouldn't mind getting an uninterrupted few hours where he could watch Loki as much as he wanted. That wasn't something he was ever likely to get on the ship, after all. It wasn't something he'd ever really thought about getting on the ship, but it had started out as a good day, and Tony was feeling pretty mellow about life. Why not indulge himself?

Then Loki stopped short, and Tony was distracted enough to bump into him. Loki jerked away like Tony had given him a shock of static electricity. 

"This should do," Loki said. He still sounded pretty breathless. Maybe he had allergies--did Asgardians even get allergies? What about adopted Asgardians? Or maybe the terrain had been rougher than Tony had thought, because he realized he was breathing a little fast himself. 

"This" was what looked like an abandoned log cabin, built in another small clearing. Maybe a woodcutter's cabin, or a hunter or trapper's shack? Tony wasn't up on his "identifying primitive housing" skills. It didn't look like much, but it did have four walls and a thatched roof. 

He followed Loki inside; the interior confirmed that it was definitely abandoned. There was some furniture--a bare bed frame and a rough table with a couple of benches--but nothing in the way of personal belongings. The furniture had probably been too big and too heavy for the owner to take with them when they left. 

"Okay," Tony said. "We found shelter. Now you're going to tell me what the hell's going on, right?"

Loki went and sat down at the table, on the bench at the far side from Tony. "How do you feel, Stark?" 

"Okay? Better now we're in the shade. It was hot out there." Even though he could feel that the air in the cabin was cooler than outside, he still felt overheated. He was definitely going to form his armor and crank up the climate control once he got done talking to Loki. 

Loki shook his head. "It wasn't especially warm outside. I suspect... well, you tell me. When did you start feeling too warm? After we encountered the ligira plants?"

Tony thought about that a second or two. "Yeah, I think so. Must have been the exertion," he added hopefully, although he wasn't an idiot. An increase in body temperature could be the result of whatever drug they'd been hit with.

"How do you feel?" Loki asked again. 

"Why do you keep asking that?" 

"Because I'm not sure how large of a dose you got," he said. "I know how much of it hit me, and I know how it affects me, because I've had experience with ligira pollen in the past." Loki swallowed, looking away from Tony. Tony watched the way his throat rippled, and wondered why it was that fascinating. 

Entirely too fascinating. 

There was a three-legged stool in one corner of the room; Tony sat down on that, curling in on himself a little, because he was nearly fifty years old, damn it, not fifteen; the time for utterly inappropriate hard-ons was long past. 

"Oh, fuck," he said under his breath, because things had just clicked: why Loki was more attractive than Tony usually found him; why he was so certain that the two of them weren't going back to the ship today. Why it was so damn hot in here. Why he couldn't stop looking at Loki's mouth and imagining what it would feel like around his cock. 

"I see you've realized what effects the ligira plants have," Loki said. "Now, tell me, Stark, how do you feel?"

"Hot," Tony said. "Kind of unfocused? No," he corrected himself. "I'm not unfocused. I'm just focused on the wrong things. Mostly you." He curled his hands into fists, because he kept feeling the urge to touch himself, and no way in _hell_. 

"Don't worry," Loki said. "It's just because of the pollen. It'll wear off."

Tony snorted. It really wouldn't, but he'd settle for it going back to normal. Normal was awkward at times and potentially humiliating, but normally, Tony was perfectly capable of shoving any unwanted attraction down into the back of his mind and ignoring it. 

This was definitely not normal. 

But he needed to know exactly what was going on. "Okay, you said you know about this stuff. Tell me everything I need to know, then. No more asking me how I feel and talking in circles. Just give me the details." 

"I don't know precisely how it will affect you," Loki admitted. "It's fairly consistent across most mammalian species, but there are some outliers. Based on what I know about Midgardians, it probably should have hit you faster and harder than it did me, but it's likely I got a much larger dose." 

"Okay, then. Tell me what it does to you, and at least I'll have some idea what to expect."

"As you've obviously worked out, it's an aphrodisiac," Loki said. "Quite a powerful one. When the--" He stopped, shook his head almost imperceptibly, and started again. "My experience of ligira pollen is of the active compounds being distilled and administered in controlled doses, and I don't know how much we got. But in a relatively short period of time, we're both going to be experiencing overwhelming sexual arousal."

Tony started to say something, but Loki cut in. "I'm sure you're beginning to feel the effects already, but they'll intensify."

He didn't look at Tony, which Tony was kind of grateful for. 

"It will wear off," Loki continued. "Almost certainly by morning, probably well before that. You'll still be in control of your actions; it doesn't force you to do anything, just makes you _want_ to." He smiled tightly at Tony. "I suggest we make sure we each have a supply of food and water, and then retreat to opposite ends of the cabin until it wears off."

Tony frowned. Logically, he supposed that made sense. They could deal with the effects of the pollen on their own, or try to resist it, as they chose. The light was already dim in here; it'd be too dark to see across the room before the sun had fully set. It'd be easy to ignore what was going on on the other side of the cabin. The plausible deniability would make the whole thing less awkward tomorrow. 

It was probably the pollen talking, but that sounded like a terrible idea. 

"I don't think we should do that," he said. 

"Oh, really?" Loki's face was still flushed, obviously not from the heat. It looked good on him, Tony thought again, and so did the skeptical way he raised an eyebrow at Tony. "And what do you propose?"

Tony took a deep breath and tried to pretend this was reasonable. It wasn't reasonable at all; this was going to complicate things. But he was already hard and aching, he already wanted Loki, and-- "It's not like we aren't already going to be awkward about this later," he said. 

He could hear a slight slur in his voice, like he'd had one drink too many. The drug? Probably. It felt a little like being drunk, or at least like being both drunk and really turned on. 

"Potentially true," Loki admitted. He sounded calmer than Tony did. How was he doing that? Then Tony realized that Loki was gripping the edge of the rough-hewn table, and wondered whether, if he moved closer, he'd see that Loki's knuckles were white. 

"And if it's already going to be awkward because we each know, whether we saw or heard anything or not, what the other one was doing tonight, then why not at least try to enjoy ourselves before the awkwardness kicks in?"

Objectively, Tony knew it wasn't the best argument, but right now it felt convincing. 

Since Loki was in more or less the same state Tony was, it wasn't surprising that it seemed to feel convincing to him, too. He let go of the table and got to his feet, looking right at Tony for the first time since they'd arrived at the cabin. "Then come here, Stark."

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Next time** : Smut. And (almost) nothing but.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the words of Tom Lehrer, this is "smut and nothing but." (Well, almost nothing. Smut and character/relationship development. But a lot of smut.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's been reading so far! Comments are appreciated, kudos are adored, reading and just smiling quietly to yourself is also loved.

****

Tony got to his feet, unslinging his bag from around his neck and setting it down next to the stool. "Tony," he corrected. "If we're going to fuck, you're going to call me Tony."

"Quit arguing and come here," Loki said. "You're much too far away for me to touch you."

And, oh, God, that sounded good, so Tony found himself almost running across the room to stand in front of Loki. 

There weren't any preliminaries, just Loki impatiently getting Tony's pants open--he'd never see that button again, but Tony didn't really care right now--and shoving his hand inside. Then, with his free hand, he grabbed hold of Tony's wrist and guided Tony's hand to his own crotch. 

Tony couldn't quite figure out how Loki's trousers were fastened, and he was more than a little distracted by Loki's hand wrapping around his cock, but finally Tony got them open and took Loki's cock out. 

Tony was sure that the way he wanted to get down on his knees _right then_ was from the pollen; he did his best to ignore it. And right now Loki seemed happy enough with the way Tony started stroking him, fast and a little rougher than even the lack of any lubricant would account for. 

For himself, Tony was _definitely_ fine with the way Loki's hand felt on his own cock, and the way Loki was letting Tony fuck desperately into his fist. 

Even though it didn't feel strictly necessary, the way getting Loki's hand on him had--or the way touching Loki did, for that matter--Tony reached up and put his other hand on the back of Loki's neck, bringing him down to a better angle for Tony to kiss him. 

Loki didn't react at first, and Tony thought he might have fucked things up; Tony liked kissing the people he was fucking, whether or not there was any emotional involvement, but maybe Loki didn't. Maybe Asgardian culture was different, or maybe he thought Tony was asking for something more than just making getting through this disaster a little more pleasant for both of them. 

But Tony didn't pull away, and after a second or two, Loki started kissing Tony back, coaxing Tony's lips apart to deepen the kiss. 

Oh, yeah. Hand jobs: good. Hand jobs plus kissing: even better. 

It didn't take very long at all until Loki stopped thrusting into Tony's hand and came, with a frustrated whine that left Tony feeling a little disgruntled. He'd never had any complaints about his technique, not after 1990 or so, anyway. Before that he hadn't necessarily known what the hell he was doing. 

But when, a few seconds later, it was his turn to come, he understood why Loki had sounded so frustrated. That had definitely felt like an orgasm, but it hadn't been satisfying in the slightest; it had felt like there was something more out there, something better, and Tony hadn't been able to reach it. 

And now, he thought grumpily, it would be a while before he'd be able to try again, and Tony hated having to wait. 

Loki pulled away from him then, sitting down on the floor with his back against the wall. There really wasn't a lot in the way of comfortable sex furniture here; even whatever inadequate mattress the bed might have had at one time was long gone, and the floor was bare. Tony supposed they could use the table; it wasn't at a bad height to fuck someone on, if you didn't mind standing up while you did it. 

Then Tony lost track of time for a moment, trying to decide which he'd prefer: to spread Loki out on the table and fuck him, or to let Loki do that to him. 

His cock throbbed insistently at the images, and Tony realized he was already hard again, and that Loki was stroking himself while watching Tony through half-closed eyes. 

"So much for refractory periods?" Tony muttered. 

"We'll get a break when we're so exhausted we pass out," Loki said, in a tight-sounding voice, then, much more normally, "Why do I keep having to tell you to come closer? This was your idea in the first place." 

Tony really did want to be closer to Loki, a lot closer, so he got down on the floor, lying with his head in Loki's lap, and started nuzzling at Loki's cock. This would be a lot more convenient if Loki was naked, but that would mean stopping, and he didn't want to stop. 

Especially not since Loki's hand was in his hair now, gently but firmly pushing his head down. He'd have protested, but hell, he'd wanted to do it anyway, so Tony just took the head of Loki's cock into his mouth and started to suck. 

The angle was less than ideal, and Loki's damn clothes kept getting in the way, and Tony was getting desperate for some friction on his own cock, and Loki couldn't--or wasn't trying to--keep his hips still, so every now and then, he thrust in a little farther than Tony was ready for, and Tony choked. All of those things were absolutely true, but they were made up for by the fact that apparently, getting his dick sucked brought out a stream of filthy talk from Loki. 

"That's right, take it all, you know you want to," Loki almost crooned, his fingers stroking Tony's hair. "I saw the way you were looking at me earlier, like you were dying to have me shove my cock down your throat. I should do this more often; it'll keep you from prattling at me, at the very least."

Tony moaned and whimpered around Loki's cock, and squirmed around until he could get a hand on his own erection, pumping it frantically as he relaxed his throat and took Loki in as deeply as he could. 

That stopped the dirty talk, at least temporarily; Loki groaned, his hips bucking, and he arched up into Tony's mouth, flooding it without warning. Tony choked again, spluttered, and pulled back, spitting onto the dirt floor--it wasn't like anyone was going to care--and then dragged himself over Loki's lap, so that if he used his arms to brace himself on the floor, he could rut against Loki's thighs. 

Loki was still petting his hair; Tony was afraid to call any attention to it, because then Loki would probably stop. 

He didn't want Loki to stop. He felt like he was on fire from the alien chemicals pumping through his veins, and he was still trying to chase the satisfaction that seemed to always be just ahead of him, but the rhythmic motions of Loki's fingers in his hair were soothing, the one part of this that didn't feel like a fever dream. 

When he came, a minute or so later, he had to clench his jaw tight to keep from calling Loki's name. 

Loki gave Tony a few moments to catch his breath, and then said, "There are a few things we should take care of."

"Like the far too many clothes you're wearing?" Tony suggested. He was already pulling off his shirt, then getting unsteadily to his feet to take his pants off. 

"That's one of them." Loki braced himself against the wall to steady himself as he got up, then began removing his multiple layers of clothing. 

"You wear too damn many clothes in general," Tony said. "It makes it hard to ogle you." 

Loki only shook his head. "You don't have to voice every thought that the ligira puts into your head, you know." 

Tony decided not to tell him that he'd had that thought long before they came in contact with the plants. "Anyway, other than getting naked--and it should be obvious that I'm totally in favor of that--what else do we need to do?" He finished undressing and made a pile of his clothes on one end of the nearest bench. 

"Get the water and food out of our packs. We're going to need them both--definitely the water now, but at the rate we're burning calories, we're going to be hungry soon."

Tony should have thought of that himself. He went over to where he'd left his bag when he got distracted and got out the two bottles of water inside. "I still have some purification tablets left," he said, "and there was a well outside. If it's not dry, we have more drinking water if we need it."

Then he dug further into the bag and pulled out a couple of what Val called "rat bars." That was obviously short for "ration bars"; four of them were supposed to contain all the calories and nutrients that an average humanoid needed for a day, though the Asgardians generally doubled up. 

From the taste of them, though, Tony would have accepted it if someone told him they were, in fact, _rat_. They always carried a few days' worth when they left the ship, just to be on the safe side, but nobody ever had any objection to trading for, buying, or otherwise acquiring more appetizing food. 

Loki hadn't needed to carry a bag; he had that pocket dimension that served the dual purpose of being a place he could keep things in, and annoying Tony by having something so obviously useful that Tony couldn't figure out how to duplicate. A second's concentration, a faint glow in the air, and Loki reached through to take out his own water supply and small pile of rat bars. 

Tony unscrewed the cap of one water bottle and drank thirstily. Whether it was the climate or the pollen, he'd been hot and sweaty for a while now, and his mouth felt parched. 

Loki was probably right about their needing food soon, but he wasn't hungry enough to gnaw on a rat bar yet. 

Loki opened his own water bottle and drank deeply. "I doubt the well has gone dry," he said. "The ground's soft enough that at worst, there'll be some rainwater in it. We may not even need it--we won't have to be here that long--but it's good to know we have the option."

Tony licked his lips to capture a stray drop of water. And maybe again because Loki's eyes were following every flick of his tongue. "Just so you know," he said, "the closest thing I have to lube is a tube of antibiotic ointment in the first aid kit. I'm not sure what the base is, but it'd probably work. It's only a little tube, though, single use. It probably won't be enough." 

"It doesn't sound worth bothering with," Loki agreed. 

"That does take a few things off the agenda," he said, banishing the thought of Loki on that table. 

"We're managing so far." 

He wasn't wrong; Tony had just been looking forward to seeing which version of the table scenario he liked better. Or whether Loki would agree to both versions of the table scenario. 

He was seeing Loki's point about how the drug wasn't in control of him, though; as horny as he was Tony was pretty sure he wouldn't agree to anything that he wouldn't have been willing to do under better circumstances. Maybe to some things he'd be hesitant about under better circumstances, like, you know, having sex with Loki in the first place. 

But the fact that they could both reasonably and rationally agree to the idea that no one was getting fucked without lube, especially since he didn't think either of them was capable of being careful right now, did make Tony feel a little better about this whole situation. 

It was still embarrassing as fuck, and he was already planning out his "we must never speak of this again" speech in his head, but at least it seemed like they weren't going to wind up physically injured. 

Sore, maybe. Potentially chafed. His knees still hated him, and his back wasn't loving this either, but it wasn't like he wasn't used to feeling slightly beaten-up on a regular basis. This was a better way of getting those aches and pains than actually getting beaten up. 

"You know," Tony said, and he couldn't even blame the pollen because it wasn't like his mouth didn't get away from him on a regular basis, "I just sucked your dick. A gentleman would return the favor." 

Loki laughed. "And when have I ever given you the impression that I was a gentleman?"

But he could move quickly when he wanted to, and Tony wasn't as alert as he usually was, so it was a surprise to Tony when he found himself with his back pressed against the wall, Loki's hand against his chest holding him in place as Loki slid down to his knees with a lot more bodily contact than was strictly necessary. 

A lot more contact than Tony's brain thought was necessary, anyway. His cock was certain that on the contrary, it wasn't nearly enough. 

"I suspect you'd be delightful to tease," Loki murmured, more like he was talking to himself than to Tony; he leaned in so close that Tony could feel hot breath on his cock. 

Okay, yes, Tony was theoretically very much in favor of Loki teasing him until he broke down and begged for mercy. In practice, though, he was already pretty damn close to that breaking point right now, what with the way that goddamned drug made it impossible for him to actually be satisfied, no matter how many times he came. 

"I will punch you in the throat if you try," Tony growled. 

Maybe Loki did laugh at him again for that, but he also took Tony into his mouth, enveloping him in wet heat and then starting to suck. Tony was going to assume that somebody as old as Loki had at least as many tricks for giving good head as Tony did, but Loki didn't bother with showing off any more than Tony had; the goal was just to get him off, quickly. 

Tony wholeheartedly approved of this goal. 

The hand that had been on his chest moved down to rest on Tony's hips, still pinning him to the wall, so Tony guessed he wasn't going to get to fuck Loki's mouth the way Loki had done to Tony. 

That was actually okay. That was totally okay, because Loki's mouth on Tony was, right at this particular minute, everything Tony thought he could possibly want: heat and suction and Loki's tongue working against his cock, until it felt like the entire world had contracted down to the sensations of Loki's fingers on his skin and Loki's mouth on his cock. 

There might be wild animals out there, drawn by any loud noise they might make, Tony realized in dismay, so when he came--and despite the fact that this was the third time today, it didn't take him very long at all--he made himself bite his lip instead of screaming. 

He'd bitten down too hard; he could taste blood. But Loki pulled Tony down to sit on the floor, still against the wall, and kissed Tony's bleeding lip, which was bewilderingly affectionate but not something Tony was going to complain about. 

"Your turn?" Tony said, once his breathing had slowed a little. 

To his surprise, Loki shook his head. "Not necessary, at least for the moment." 

Tony was about to be annoyed by the sheer unfairness of how quickly the drug had worn off for Loki when he realized that wasn't what Loki meant. He _had_ only been using one hand to pin Tony to the wall, hadn't he?

"I can't blame you for that," he said, smirking. "I guess I could, but seriously, who wouldn't get that turned on by getting to blow me?"

"It's the pollen, Stark," Loki snapped, which didn't make Tony feel any less inclined to give him shit about it. 

Of course it was the pollen. The whole damn thing was the pollen. Without the pollen, none of this would be happening, and as soon as it wore off, neither of them would be willing to let it happen again.

Well, obviously, Loki wouldn't, anyway. Tony wasn't sure if he'd mind. 

But here and now, Tony was going to enjoy knowing that Loki hadn't been able to resist jerking off while he sucked Tony's cock, because that was really fucking hot. 

"Yeah, whatever you say," Tony said, letting his eyes drift closed. "You might have to wait a while if you change your mind, because I don't think I'm going to be able to stay awake much longer." He didn't always roll right over and fall asleep after he came, but he didn't usually have three orgasms in a very short time period. He was justified in being tired. 

Loki moved away from him, and for a moment, Tony thought he was sulking about Tony's need to sleep. Instead, he came back with some of his discarded clothing; he draped a shirt--one of the excessive number of shirts, tunics, coats, or whatever-the-hell-you-called-them that Loki had decided were necessary for a walk through the countryside on a warm spring day--over Tony, then rolled another one up and lay down, using it for a pillow. 

Tony took he one Loki had given him and wadded it into a pillow for himself. It still wasn't all that comfortable, but it was a lot better than just sprawling where they fell. 

Besides, Loki had actually given a shit about whether or not Tony was comfortable. 

That sense of warmth spreading through Tony as he fell asleep was definitely just the fever from the ligira pollen. He was drugged, not stupid. 

He didn't know how long they slept--well, how long he slept, anyway; Loki had been awake when Tony closed his eyes, and didn't seem to be sleeping now, either. It was sometime in the late afternoon now, he thought, but the cabin didn't have any windows, so it was hard to tell from the light coming in through the cracks in between the logs. 

It had been long enough that he wasn't exhausted any more, though, which meant that the pollen was having its effect again. 

He was about to take care of that himself, since he wasn't sure if Loki was awake or not. But then Loki opened his eyes, and Tony had a better idea. He crawled over to Loki's side, then sprawled on top of him with a grin. "Hi." 

Loki just shook his head. Not, Tony was pretty sure, a head-shake that meant, "No, don't do this," just one that meant, "Wow, Tony, you're an idiot." 

Which seemed like the kind of thing Loki was likely to say to, and/or about, him on a regular basis, based on previous experience. 

But just to be sure, Tony shifted position until his cock was pressed against Loki's and then rocked his hips a little, groaning at the sensation. "This good?"

Loki's hips rose up to meet him. "It'll do."

Damn right it would do. Tony continued to rock against Loki. Loki's hands were on his ass, probably for some totally innocent reason that didn't involve him wanting to grope Tony. 

Or not. Tony really hoped not, but he couldn't be sure if that was him, or the ligira pollen. 

No. He was sure. He'd just be a lot more comfortable blaming the pollen. 

"You know," Tony said, "there's stuff we could do without lube, if we're careful." 

Loki had been kissing Tony's neck, which was pretty good, and just made the fact that Loki's cock was also sliding against his even better. When Tony said that, though, he bit down sharply, right where Tony's neck met his shoulder, and Tony cried out, his back arching as he came. 

And then the friction on his cock was way too much, so he pulled back, reaching between them to stroke Loki's erection until he clutched Tony tight against him and came as well. 

"Were you trying to distract me?" Tony demanded, once he could make words happen again. 

Loki just stared at him for a second, probably having the same difficulty with words that Tony had, then shook his head. "I'm fairly certain that for another few hours, at least, you're going to be doing a good enough job of distracting yourself."

"So you were paying attention?" Tony's head was resting on Loki's chest; he was close enough to Loki's right nipple for him to lick it, so he did. 

"I heard what you said, but that doesn't mean I agree."

Tony frowned. "My ideas are generally brilliant. You need to accept that now; it'll save you a lot of trouble in the future." He licked again, watching the nipple pucker and harden. 

"And when you need medical attention because one of us got too enthusiastic, you'll be the one explaining to Dr. Banner what happened. Do you want that?" 

"Who says it's my ass that anything's going into?" Loki just looked at him for several long seconds, and Tony relented. "Okay, you win, it totally would be." At least today, since he was the one who was pushing for this. 

"Certainly under these circumstances," Loki said, which Tony's brain filed away for consideration at a point where he wasn't focused on trying to convince Loki to at least put a finger inside him. 

"Anyway," Tony said, "you're not going to hurt me. I'm pretty damn relaxed right now, and it's not like I've never done anything like this before. And," he added triumphantly, "it's not like I'm asking you to fist me. One finger?"

"You're going to regret it."

"Yeah," Tony said. "You're probably terrible in bed when I'm not desperate from weird alien aphrodisiac. I get that." 

Loki smacked him on the shoulder. 

"Ow?" It hadn't been hard enough to hurt, just annoying. 

"Not actually painful, just annoying," was probably the best description of the new, reformed, ninety-nine percent less evil Loki that Tony could come up with, too. 

"So," Tony said, sighing, "I'm guessing that's a no?" 

"That is, in fact, a no."

Something--the same thing that always led Tony to say things he probably shouldn't--made him ask, "No forever, or no here and now?"

There were a few seconds of silence, during which Tony half wanted Loki to just answer him already, and half wanted a fifteen-second rewind button on the universe so he'd never have asked the question. 

He was definitely blaming this on the pollen. 

Tony didn't get either of the options he'd wanted, but he got something even better: Loki completely ignoring what he'd said and just kissing him.

That was clearly the best possible response. Anyway, a few hours from now, this conversation would just be slid into the pile of all the other things that Tony was certain they'd mutually agree had never happened, not even a little bit. 

"Maybe," Tony said after a few more kisses, "we don't need to try to get creative. I mean, we're not really in a position to appreciate superior technique anyway." He wrapped his hand around both their cocks, stroking them together. Yeah, that was good enough for him right now, when all he wanted was to get off, and then do it again, and again, until this stupid pollen wore off and he could get on with his life. 

It turned out that even sex could get boring after a while. Even sex with another person. Even when it felt good, and when his body kept demanding more of it, Tony would really rather be in the engine room on board the ship right now, although he wouldn't object if Loki was there too. Just... fully clothed. At least for the next few days. 

"I don't know," Loki said. "I'm considering gagging you; would that count as 'creative' in your book?" The conversation fell off for a moment while they both got distracted by what Tony was doing; instead of words, there were gasps and moans and Loki's hand covering his own, tightening his grip. 

But a few minutes later, when Tony was sprawled against Loki's chest again, trying to ignore how sticky and gross he felt, he said, "You know, it really depends. Would this be the fun kind of gagging, or the 'shut up, Tony,' kind of gagging?" 

Loki pushed him aside, sitting up and fumbling around until he found one of the water bottles. He unscrewed the cap and drank deeply. 

Tony frowned. "That's mine, isn't it?"

Loki held the bottle out to him silently. 

"That's not the point," he said, but he took it and drank the rest of the water anyway. It wasn't like it really mattered; he was just cranky because Loki was being difficult. "And you're not answering my question."

"No, I'm not, am I?" Loki said, stretching lazily. "And now I'm going to sleep, so I suppose you'll never get your answer."

It hadn't been that long since they'd woken up, but sleep was sounding like a good idea anyway. 

He stretched out on the floor again. "It's a little of both, isn't it?" he asked, grinning at Loki. "Most people who suggest gagging me, it's a little of both." 

"I can certainly understand how they feel," Loki said, laughing. 

Tony just shook his head, pretending to be stunned by Loki's stubbornness, and closed his eyes. 

He'd expected to lie awake for a while, willing himself to fall asleep, trying to build up energy reserves for the next round, but instead, when he opened his eyes again, it was completely dark in the cabin. 

No, not completely dark. There was a faint green glow from the table, and as Tony's eyes adjusted, he saw Loki sitting there. The glow was obviously his doing--where the hell else would a floating green light come from?--but it didn't seem like he was really doing anything with it at the moment. It was just a little green light, a bit smaller and a bit dimmer than a candle flame. 

"Did the light wake you?"

"That almost sounds like you'd apologize if it did," Tony said, getting to his feet. 

"No, but I thought I'd calculated the radius precisely, and it would be annoying to discover that I hadn't."

That sounded more likely. "Did you drink all the water?"

"No." Loki waved at the other side of the table, and Tony saw that there were a bottle and a couple of rat bars sitting there. "Or, truthfully, yes, I did, but only after checking to see whether the well water looked clear. It did, and the purification tablets have been in there long enough to have worked." 

"Oh. Uh. Thanks, I guess." 

"I filled all the bottles, so we should be good for the night. We'll fill them again in the morning before we leave."

Tony sat down and took a swig of the water, then tore open the wrapping on one of the ration bars. He was hungry enough by now that the bar didn't even taste that bad. Chalky, and a little too salty, but not actually unpleasant. "You think we'll be able to leave in the morning?"

Loki held up a hand, then finished chewing his mouthful of food. Once he'd swallowed, he said, "Don't you? It's not gone yet, but we slept longer this time, and I'm able to sit across the table from you and resist the urge to reach over and touch you."

"First time I ever thought it was great news that I wasn't irresistible," Tony said, "but yeah, you might be right." The lust was still there, simmering right under his skin, but for the moment, it was ignorable. He could eat, drink, maybe clean himself up a little, before he'd have to give in. 

"The effects of the ligira will probably wear off some time during the night," Loki went on, "but I'm not all that eager to try to find the ship in the dark." 

"Yeah, no," Tony agreed. "If we set out at first light, we'll be there long before anyone starts to worry about us." They'd finished their business in the city a lot quicker than they expected to; Thor and the others wouldn't even be looking for them to return before the afternoon, at the earliest. 

Loki nodded. "Right now, eat," he said. "I don't want you passing out from hunger when I start to find you irresistible again." 

Tony laughed and took another bite of his rat bar. Now that he knew there would definitely be an end to this situation, he was damn well going to have fun while it lasted.

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Next week:** They have to go back to the ship sometime. Awkwardness ensues.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after. Awkwardness ensues. So does a little plot!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks to everyone who's reading this. <3

****

Anyway, it had sort of been fun while it lasted. It hadn't been _bad_ , at least. They'd eaten and cleaned up a little; Loki had brought in a bucket of water for them to use to wash themselves off with, though one bucket was all he'd been wiling to bring in by magical candlelight. He'd made sure Tony realized that he'd only brought it inside the cabin in the first place because it was a chilly night and he didn't want to stand around outside wet and naked.

Since Tony didn't want to go out for a second bucket any more than Loki did, he decided one was plenty. He was just glad to be able to get himself a little cleaner than he had been, even though the water was cold. 

By that point, Loki had been pretty damn difficult to resist--and apparently Tony was also a lot less resistible than he'd been earlier, too--so there'd been a few more rounds of imperfectly-satisfying sex, until they were too exhausted to move, let along fuck, and had collapsed into sleep. 

When Tony woke up again, daylight was coming in around the door and between the logs in the walls, and he felt like not even the best fluffer the intergalactic porn industry had to offer could get him interested in sex. 

Loki was still asleep, so Tony decided to make himself useful; he refilled their canteens and dropped in more of the purification tablets, then filled the bucket and brought it back inside. They didn't have any soap, but he tore off some of the hem of his T-shirt, which had gotten ripped at some point yesterday anyway, and used it to scrub off some of the really disgusting quantities of dried come that his skin was streaked with. 

He splashed some water on his face, too, and then got dressed again. At least he'd been wearing a loose, long-sleeved shirt over the t-shirt yesterday, chosen so that he'd blend in better with the locals, so he didn't have to walk back to the ship wearing a crop top. The missing button on his pants was going to be bad enough.

Chafing was a very real issue right now. There were parts of his anatomy that weren't really a big fan of fabric against them, even the soft material of his underwear. 

So were tired, strained muscles: he'd pulled something in the back of his right thigh, his left shoulder hurt, and he'd bruised his foot by accidentally kicking something--maybe the leg of the table, maybe the wall; he hadn't been paying all that much attention at the time. And that was all on top of, "I got knocked down repeatedly and then slept on the ground." 

Maybe it was a good idea that Loki hadn't given in to Tony's attempts at persuasion yesterday. He didn't need to be dealing with yet another layer of discomfort this morning. 

By the time Loki woke up, Tony was fully dressed and had eaten breakfast. He was still a little hungry, but since they were heading back to the ship, he'd wait. Their food might be mainly frozen or dehydrated, but at least it wasn't rat bars. 

"Morning, sleepyhead," Tony said. He'd gone out for more water after eating; on the way back in, he'd picked up a stick that he was using to scrape up some of the hard-packed earth of the floor. A little water, a little digging around, a couple of well-placed footprints, and the visible traces of their activity from last night had vanished. 

At least, the visible traces on the cabin. Tony's clothing was covering all the traces on his body: the small bruises and occasional scratches Loki had left on his skin. 

Loki scowled at him and got to his feet. "There's water," Tony said. "You can get cleaned up."

He didn't really expect Loki to thank him, but the way Loki glared at him seemed a little unfair. Unless this was just an I-don't-do-mornings deal. Tony didn't do mornings either, especially not without coffee, but at least he was making an effort. 

"I'm going to try to contact the ship," he said. They hadn't bothered before; no one had been expecting them before today anyway. But Tony wanted to get away from Loki, and going outside to call the others seemed like as good a reason as any. "Come out when you're ready to get moving."

He put his filled water bottles back in the bag, slung it around his neck, and went out to the clearing that surrounded the hut. The sun was bright already; Tony went to stand in the shade of one of the spreading trees at the edge of the clearing, and let his armor form around him. 

He had a hand-held communicator in his bag, just as Loki had one wherever it was Loki kept his stuff, but he'd tuned his suit's comms to be able to use the ship's system. There was no point fumbling for the hand-held one when he could just use his armor, even if it was useful when he had a reason to leave the armor off. 

It took a couple of tries, but finally Bruce answered, sounding half-asleep. "Tony? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he reassured him quickly. "Loki and I are on our way back. Everything went great back there." 

That wasn't a lie. Everything had gone great back in town. It was once they'd come out here that things had gone haywire. 

"Did you find those Asgardians? Are they with you?"

"Yes and no. We found them, and they're coming back, but they'll make their own way to Earth once they've settled whatever business they have in this part of the galaxy."

"Great," Bruce said. "Thor and Valkyrie should be thrilled."

"Yeah, great," Tony echoed. And it was, in fact, good news. He was happy for the Asgardians. But he was also tired, and sore, and feeling more than a little disgruntled about Loki's attitude, and "thrilled" required more energy than he had right now. Turned out, sleeping on the ground wasn't all that restful. 

"Anyway," he went on, "you know how we didn't reconnect the weapons system after that last refit because we were running out of time, and who needs weapons on a diplomatic vessel anyway?"

"...Yeah?" There was an awful lot of doubt packed into that one word.

"You want to get a head start on reconnecting them? I mean, unless there's something else going on."

"Sleep," Bruce mumbled. "Sleep was going on, Tony. And now you want weapons? What the hell did you and Loki do?"

"Nothing much." Bruce wouldn't thank him for the details. "But there's some stuff--non-intelligent-life-form stuff, I mean--that we should probably blast into ashes before we break orbit. I could go back and do it with the armor, but--" 

But he didn't want to go anywhere near those plants again. "But I'd probably have to recharge more than once, because there's a lot of it. It'll be quicker this way."

Bruce yawned. "Okay, okay. I'll see if I can get started. We're mostly done with the maintenance checks anyway."

"Thanks, Bruce. Loki and I should be heading out pretty soon, so we ought to be there by midday at the latest." 

To be honest, Tony could just stay in his armor and fly back to the ship, but he figured he needed the time to get into a more suitable mood for being around other people. 

Also, he had a horrifying feeling that he and Loki were going to need to talk about what had happened. Serious talks about interpersonal relationships weren't Tony's favorite thing in general, but with Loki? He was guessing that would be a new level of hell.

When Loki came out of the hut, Tony was struck with the realization that there was no way in hell they were going to have any chance of hiding what had just happened from the others. Loki's clothes were rumpled and his hair was disheveled despite an attempt to pull it back. There might not be any visible marks on him--it was hard to mark an Asgardian's skin enough for it to show six hours later--but he still looked like he'd had one hell of a night. 

He wasn't sure why Loki didn't just magic himself into looking the way he normally did, but his expression was still sour enough that Tony wasn't going to ask him. 

Tony had been considering just staying in his armor, minus the helmet, until he could shower, change clothes, and make absolutely certain that none of the marks Loki had left on him showed. He was sure he didn't look any less like he'd just had a wild night than Loki did, especially since he'd had to use some of the duct tape in his bag to keep his pants closed.

But if Loki wasn't going to make the effort to hide what had happened, he wouldn't either, so instead, he let the armor dissolve and stepped forward. "Ready to go?" he asked, trying to sound cheerful. 

"No," Loki drawled, "I was looking forward to spending another day in this dismal hut." He paused for a second and then added, "And in this dismal company."

Nice. Tony scowled at him. Loki hadn't minded Tony's company last night, after all. Hell, he hadn't minded Tony's company yesterday morning, either, before they'd encountered the ligira plants. 

Nope, it was obvious that Loki was just pissy that Tony had talked him out of his stupid "let's each pick a corner and pretend the other one's not here" suggestion, and he was going to make Tony live to regret it. And people called _Tony_ immature.

"Let's get going, then." He found the path and took a moment to make certain that they'd be heading in the right direction, then started walking. 

Loki kept pace with him easily, of course; the surprising thing was that he was even trying to. Tony would have figured Loki would either stride far ahead or lag behind, to avoid the possibility of Tony talking to him. 

After a quarter of a mile or so, he decided to do just that. "I got Bruce to start reconnecting the weapons systems."

That snapped Loki out of the silent funk he'd been in. "Whatever for?"

"Because we're blasting those plants into cinders. They're dangerous. We can't just leave them lying around for someone else to stumble on. We should probably look to see if they've spread outside the clearing, too."

"I doubt they have," Loki said. "Growing them here, outside a greenhouse, would have required careful preparation of the soil. I expect there'll be a few other cultivated patches, though."

"How did they even get here? You said they're not native to this planet, and if they're hard to grow, they can't just be an accidental transplant. Why would someone go to all that trouble?"

"Apart from a few planets lawless enough to not care, they're illegal across the galaxy. But since this planet hasn't even discovered space flight yet, I suppose this looked like a safe enough place to raise a crop to sell on the black market."

"Someone could just walk through the woods and get caught up in that."

"Someone did," Loki pointed out. "Us. But five miles from the nearest town is a significant enough distance for people who depend on animals for transportation that they're not coming out here without a purpose in mind."

"Anyway," Tony said, "if we get rid of them, nobody's going to accidentally stumble on them and get sprayed with freaky sex chemicals." 

Loki was silent for a moment, then said, "I could wish that we hadn't, either." 

Tony took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm pretty sure that standard protocol for this kind of situation is to say that this just didn't happen, and therefore we never need to mention it again." 

Loki shrugged slightly. "Will pretending it didn't happen make you feel better about it?"

"I don't feel bad about it in the first place."

"So there's no need to swear that we'll never speak of it again, though I doubt we're going to sit around and talk about the wonderful time we spent on Atheron." 

"Uh, no. Dirt floors, no lube, no hot water, no indoor plumbing. All those things add up to a terrible review on Trip Advisor." 

Loki didn't comment. In fact, Loki didn't say anything much for the rest of their journey, except "this direction," or "careful of the branches." (On the way to the city from the ship, it had been, "Oh, dear, did those branches hit you in the face?" which had been annoying, but at least felt like normal Loki behavior.)

When they reached the ship, the sun was high in the sky, and Thor was the only one in sight. He was working on fixing some damage that the outer hull had taken during an encounter with some debris a few weeks ago. It hadn't been a high priority, but this mission had given them some time to handle minor repairs.

"Brother! Stark! We didn't expect you back this soon," Thor said, setting his tools aside and coming to meet them. 

"Bruce didn't pass on my message?"

"No, he did," Thor said, "but it's still a pleasant surprise to find that your mission was finished so soon--and successfully, he said? Did you speak with Thyra and the others? Are they well?"

"Quite well, from what we saw of them," Loki reported, "and I'll be happy to tell you more about them, but not yet, Thor. Give me an hour." 

Thor frowned slightly, looking the two of them over for a moment. His eyes narrowed. "You look as though you encountered some difficulty," he said. "Wild animals?" 

"Ligira plants," Loki said curtly, which ended Tony's brief hope that Loki would have agreed with Thor's guess. An encounter with hostile wildlife would have explained their appearance as well as Tony's sore muscles and any bruises or scrapes the others might catch a glimpse of. 

Loki, of course, had the same kind of constitution as a native Asgardian, and seemed to be fine. Grouchy and in need of a shower, but fine. The bastard.

"Those aren't native to this system, are they?"

Loki ignored him, pushing past Thor and disappearing into the ship. Tony followed quickly, though he decided against going straight to the shower. The shower room had two separate cubicles, but Tony wanted to put some space between himself and Loki, at least for a few minutes.

Instead, he went to the engine room, where Bruce was half-visible underneath one of the control consoles. "How's that weapons system coming?" he said, and grinned when he heard Bruce drop whatever tool he was using in surprise. 

Bruce was too good at controlling his reactions to have actually hit his head on the console, but the look he gave Tony when he emerged from underneath was as disgruntled as if he had. "Why would you think sneaking up on me, of all people, is a good idea?" Bruce demanded. "Also, what happened to you?"

"Rough night," Tony said. "I'm really not cut out for rugged outdoor living."

"Why didn't you stay in the town last night, if you left too late to make it back here before dark? We aren't going to be ready to take off until tomorrow, anyway. Maybe the day after, now that you want us to get the weapons online." 

He turned his head from side to side, rubbing the back of his neck. "Why do you want us to get them running, anyway? I know you gave me a vague explanation earlier, but I was still mostly asleep." 

"Long story," Tony said, "and I only want to go through it once. I'm going to get cleaned up, and then we'll all talk."

God, he wasn't looking forward to that. If both Thor and Loki knew what those plants were, and Loki did too, chances were that their other Asgardian crewmate would, too. And she'd probably find it hilarious. 

Maybe if it had been Tony and Bruce, she would have kept her amusement to herself, but an opportunity to mock Loki for finding himself in that sort of predicament wasn't going to be easy for her to pass up. 

Tony couldn't really blame her for that. He just didn't want to be there for it.

"After that, though," Tony went on, "I'll help out in here." 

"Thanks. Thor and Val are decent assistants, but neither of them is an expert on spaceship maintenance." 

Tony laughed. "And yet, somehow, we are. Which, don't get me wrong, is completely awesome, and my one regret about it is that I haven't been doing this my entire life. It's just a little weird." Not that he'd have traded all the other parts of his life for this, but if he could have had that, and a spaceship too? 

Perfect. 

Also perfect was his timing. By the time he left Bruce and went to the shower room, Loki was already gone, only the humidity in the air giving any sign that he'd been there. 

Once Tony was under the shower spray, the temperature adjusted to just shy of scalding, he felt better. Their room at the inn hadn't come with a bath, so Tony had already been feeling a little grungy before spending the night sleeping in dirt. He'd done the best he could to clean up that morning, but there was still plenty of what he was tactfully calling "grime" to wash away.

Beyond that, the hot water was doing wonders for his sore muscles, and that, in turn, was doing wonders for his mood. 

By the time he was completely clean, dried off, and dressed, Tony felt--

Honestly, he still felt like he'd spent the past twenty-four hours walking ten miles across the countryside, getting knocked down a few times, sleeping on a dirt floor, and having ridiculous amounts of sex, but he was a lot less annoyed about all of it. 

Bruce had buzzed him on the ship's intercom to let him know that they were all gathering in the galley to hear about their encounter with the other Asgardians, so once Tony felt presentable, he headed that way. At least there would be coffee and food that wasn't a rat bar. 

And, presumably, intense embarrassment, because based on past experience, no one was going to let "we need to completely obliterate some plants" go without asking a lot of questions. 

When he got there, he saw, to his extreme lack of delight, that the only available seat was next to Loki. There was seating for six--the expected number of crew members, though they did all right with just the five of them--but Loki's scowl had apparently encouraged them to leave an empty chair on either side of him. 

Tony got himself a cup of coffee--actual, honest-to-God, Earth coffee, because he'd refused to leave the planet without it--and sat down between Loki and Bruce. Food could wait until this conversation was over.

Loki didn't seem to take any notice of Tony; he was telling Thor about their meeting with the Asgardians. "Skarde said they knew where there might be a few more of our people settled," he said. "I have the coordinates for the navigation computers; it's pretty far off the major space lanes. I suppose we'll be headed there next?"

"Of course," Thor said. "Even if they don't choose to return to New Asgard, they should be given the opportunity." 

Tony suspected most of them would turn up; perhaps not immediately, but within the next year or so, even if they'd been happy to live away from Asgard before it had been destroyed.

"There's another matter we should address," Loki said. 

"Would that be why Banner is reconnecting our weaponry at last?" Valkyrie hadn't approved of leaving it disconnected for so long. Thor's insistence that if they were detected, weapons on a diplomatic ship would give offense to the very people they were trying to engage in diplomacy _with_ hadn't swayed her. She'd given in because Thor was her king and the _de facto_ captain, but she'd made it clear that she hadn't liked it. 

"It is," Loki agreed. "Someone is growing ligira plants here." 

"They're illegal in this sector," Valkyrie said, taking a long swig from her mug of what was probably ale. It usually was. "Admittedly, that's never stopped anyone before, and it explains why they're doing it here in this backwater even though it doesn't have the right kind of sun to get the best quality product." 

"There's always a black market for it," Loki said, "and not everyone has the facilities to allow them to grow it openly on a more advanced world." 

Tony was relieved that Val had gone straight from "these plants are here" to "what shady shit is going on?" without detouring through "this is hilarious." Thor, however, was being unusually quiet, looking from Loki to Tony and back again but not offering any observations. 

"So what are these plants?" Bruce said. "They're illegal, so I'm guessing they can be turned into some kind of drug? Do you have a sample I can analyze?"

That wasn't an unusual request from Bruce. He took samples of the local flora whenever he had the chance; Tony was sure that he'd taken some breaks from maintenance over the past couple of days to collect some from here. When they were in space and there wasn't anything else urgent to do, he used a corner of the engine room to run chemical analyses on the samples.

"No," Thor said immediately, echoed a split second later by the rest of them. Bruce looked a little stunned by their unanimous vehemence, so Thor went on, "Taking a sample of ligira plants is far too risky."

"I did get you some herbs from the market," Tony said. "I even have some notes about what the sellers said they were good for." 

"Thanks, Tony." Bruce's look of surprise was probably justifiable. Tony knew he wasn't always known for thoughtfulness, but he'd been bored.

"But what _are_ they?" he went on relentlessly. 

"I never heard of them before yesterday," Tony pointed out, and Loki just sat there with his arms folded, staring at Thor. 

When Thor realized they were leaving the awkward explanations to him, he sighed. "They're illegal because they produce a very powerful aphrodisiac," he said, managing to look around the room without meeting anyone's eye. "A number of civilizations have felt that the potential for misuse was too high to allow them to be cultivated." 

"People have died," Valkyrie cut in. 

Tony glared at Loki. "You said--" 

"The refined product is much riskier than the raw pollen, and the dose you received wasn't that high," Loki said. 

"And you--" Bruce began, looking at Tony. "Both of you--" he tried again, despite Loki's glare. 

"We're fine," Tony said firmly, even though it apparently hadn't been as certain a thing as Loki had implied back at the cabin. "Nobody died, and we're both okay. Right, Loki?"

Loki nodded stiffly. "We're completely unharmed. The only injury was to our dignity."

Tony thought about arguing that he had some chafing that would contradict that, but then decided he liked Bruce too much to inflict that knowledge on him. "See?" he said instead. "We're totally fine."

Then Valkyrie went on. "Ligira is also illegal on some planets because it can be used for torture." She'd turned to look in Loki's direction, but kept her gaze directed to a spot just past his shoulder. "Restrain someone, dose them, leave them alone. Just for a little while, if you want them to talk. If all you want is for them to suffer, you leave them until the effects wear off." 

Tony ran the risk of turning his head enough to see Loki's face. Loki was usually pale, and Tony hadn't ever tried to quantify it before, so he couldn't be sure whether he was any paler than normal. 

But his face was also expressionless, and that definitely wasn't normal for Loki. His expression might often suggest that he was thinking, "I hate all of you and am currently envisioning your painful and humiliating death," but it was there. 

That was--Tony wasn't sure what it was, only it reminded him of the way Loki's voice had sounded back at the cabin when he'd said he had experience with ligira plants. It wasn't all that hard to believe that someone who was a fan of torturing people in general would have tortured Loki. 

Loki was, after all, not only the most trustworthy of people, but also a complete asshole even when he was on your side. He rarely went through a day without pissing Thor off, and Thor loved his brother so much he'd given Loki something like a dozen second chances just in the few years Tony had known him. He rarely went through a day without pissing Tony off, either, and Tony was inclined to cut him a lot of slack, for reasons he didn't want to get into. 

In fact, only person on board that Loki didn't regularly infuriate was Bruce, and that was because even if you could heal up from the damage, getting smashed by the Hulk hurt like a son of a bitch. 

So yeah, if you were the kind of person who thought torture was a good idea, torturing Loki would probably cross your mind at some point. 

And the way Bruce just looked from Valkyrie to Loki and back to Valkyrie meant that if Tony wanted to, he could probably narrow down when and where it had happened. 

He wasn't going to do that, because it was none of his business unless Loki wanted to tell him.

"Anyway," Tony said, a little louder than strictly necessary, "since this stuff is bad news, generally illegal, and has personally annoyed the shit out of me, I was thinking that we'd use the weapons system and the ship's sub-orbital capabilities and burn those plants into creepy cinders before we go. Who's with me?" 

For once, a suggestion someone made didn't require an hour's argument before people were willing to agree; everyone nodded.

"Great, that's settled. "Bruce, want some help in the engine room?"

"Yeah, sure, I could use an extra pair of hands." 

"I'm going to keep working on the upgrades to the navigation computer," Valkyrie said. Software upgrades in space were every bit as much of a pain in the ass as they were on Earth. They didn't take a huge amount of technical expertise, just a lot of patience. 

Val didn't really have that, but she had the ability to press the right buttons when needed and to keep herself entertained the rest of the time. Besides, if you stood in the corridor and listened, you could pick up some truly inventive curses. 

"I should finish the hull repairs," Thor said. "The longer we stay here, the higher our chances of discovery."

That just left Loki. Loki frequently helped Tony in the engine room--or "helped," anyway; he was perfectly capable of being genuinely helpful, but preferred to spend most of his time criticizing what Tony was doing. 

Tony wasn't planning to admit it, ever, but he kind of enjoyed that. It was more funny than irritating, and it made the time pass more quickly when he was doing boring maintenance as opposed to tinkering with improvements. 

But Loki looked at Thor and said, "What about you? Do you need any help?"

Thor took a few seconds to reply, probably too taken aback at the offer to form words for a little while. Not that Thor and Loki were getting along badly, as far as Tony could see, but Tony also chalked that up at least in part to their staying out of one another's way in situations where one or both of them might get irritated, like doing monotonous but fiddly work in the hot sun. 

Thor recovered from his surprise soon enough, though, and shrugged. "If you're offering, yes, that would be helpful." But he looked at Tony again, with a thoughtful expression that Tony was still having a hard time reconciling with his mental image of Thor, and Tony thought his answering shrug didn't satisfy Thor's curiosity at all.

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Next week:** More plot!


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens, very very slightly. (Look, it's sex pollen fic, don't expect a _lot_ of plot.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's been reading! Extra thanks to those who've left kudos or comments. <3

****

"It's not enough." Tony gestured toward the screen where an image of a precision-blasted plot of earth was still displayed.

"There were three patches of ligira plants on the planet," Thor said. "That was the third one. We can't find any more traces."

"No, that's not what I meant," he said. "Yeah, the plants are gone, and that's great. But someone was growing them, and who's to say they won't just replant them? Or move to a different planet and just plant them there?"

"What do you propose that we do?" Loki said. "We've no idea where they are, or even who they are. We've made certain that no one else will stumble into them; we should just go."

Valkyrie frowned at him. "So you're all right with the ligira trade just going on unchecked in this sector?"

"Yes!" Loki said. "Absolutely! Why should I care? I won't be here. I admit that it was rather satisfying to watch them go up in flames, but I've never claimed to be above petty personal vengeance."

"I'm fairly certain you have," Thor said. "More than once."

"I've never _believably_ claimed to be above petty personal vengeance," Loki corrected himself. "The rest of the galaxy is on its own." He looked at Valkyrie and shook his head. "I hadn't expected you, of all people, to be a moral crusader."

"Maybe it's just slightly less petty personal vengeance," she said. "Think about it, Loki. Wouldn't it be more satisfying if we dealt with the people responsible for putting those plants there? The plants aren't intelligent. They're operating on a purely instinctual level. They've evolved a mechanism where they drag creatures in, coat them in pollen, and get them to spread that pollen as far as possible by transferring it to other animals. It's survival of the species. It's not their fault."

She paused for a moment to take a drink, then went on. "Someone knew what they are, and planted them anyway. And you know what kind of people buy ligira."

Tony could hear tension in Loki's voice when he answered, even if he didn't know exactly why. "I can see that I'm going to be outvoted anyway," he said. "That still doesn't tell me how you're planning to do this."

"The pollen's what they want, right?" Bruce said. 

"That and the sap," Val answered, "but the sap's a time-consuming proposition. It has to be distilled and purified before it can be used. The pollen can be refined and concentrated, but it can be used as it comes off the plant, and even the refining is a much quicker process."

"And the plants are producing pollen right now. So whoever planted them is likely to arrive soon to harvest the stuff."

"Assuming," Loki said, "that they haven't been monitoring the patches from a safe distance, and they don't know that we've just incinerated them. If they have been, they'll presumably cut their losses and try again elsewhere."

"He has a point," Thor said. 

"Forty-eight hours?" Tony suggested. "I get it, we can't hang around here indefinitely. But if Bruce is right, they'll be coming back for the pollen soon if they're coming at all. We can take them by surprise."

"And do what?" Valkyrie said. "I meant it, I'm in favor of this, but I want to know what our plan is." 

"I'm not the expert on galactic culture," Tony said, "but there's some kind of interplanetary law enforcement, right? We hand them over to them."

"Handing them over to Nova Corps could work," she said. "But it's probably not a great idea for us to spend any more time in the open. Our landing site was secure enough for a few days, but leaving and coming back is likely to attract attention, and I don't want to deal with locals who've suddenly discovered they aren't alone in the universe."

"What about right here?" Bruce said, zooming in on the scanner display and pointing out a deep canyon with forested areas on either side. "We ruled it out when we originally landed because it's almost twice as far from the city, but it should work for this. With the trees and the canyon giving cover, we're going to be invisible from the ground."

"The distance might be inconvenient," Valkyrie said. 

"We can bring the ship closer when we see any activity in those areas," Tony said. "I know the ship isn't designed for that kind of short hop, but it'll work."

"And none of this is our problem," Loki reminded them. "We're likely to earn ourselves some powerful enemies."

Tony shrugged. "When don't we?"

"So," Bruce said, "that's one vote for 'let's be selfish dicks' and how many for 'let's at least make an attempt to be the good guys'?" He put his right hand up in the air. 

Tony immediately followed, and Thor and Valkyrie weren't far behind. 

"As predicted," Bruce said, "you're outvoted, Loki."

"Thus pointing out the flaws of democracy," Loki said. "Four fools can outvote the single intelligent perspective." 

"If it makes you happier," Thor said, "it's a monarchy, at least as far as you're concerned, and your king has spoken."

"It doesn't." 

"We'll go with Stark and Banner's plan," Thor went on, just as if Loki hadn't said anything. "For now, we should probably land the ship. We're wasting fuel like this."

It didn't take all of them to land the ship; the three Asgardians were each capable of doing it solo, and Bruce and Tony could manage, though neither of them was completely comfortable being in control of the ship without any of the others around. 

They usually all went to the bridge, anyway. Tony hadn't ever really gotten over the "we are actually flying in an actual spaceship" thing, even if he tried to play it cool. He thought Bruce probably felt the same way, and the Asgardians were probably just trying to make sure the humans didn't break anything.

This time, "all" didn't include Loki, who had turned the other direction when they left the galley, heading down toward the crew quarters.

"What crawled up his ass this time?" Valkyrie muttered. 

Bruce glanced at Tony. 

"Well, it wasn't me, if that's what you're implying," Tony said, just to see Bruce grimace at him. Really, they'd been friends long enough that Bruce ought to be embarrassment-proof. "And I don't know. He's pissy about what happened with those plants, but I'd figure that would be directed at me. Or at the people who planted them there, which should make him eager to get them locked up, or at least to get the chance to punch them in their faces."

Then he shook his head. "But it's Loki, so who the fuck knows?"

Thor chuckled at that. "I wouldn't have phrased it that way--"

"But it's true?" Tony finished for him. 

"It's not an unreasonable way to look at things," Thor agreed. "But we don't need Loki at the moment. Let him rest. You should probably do the same thing. We'll work out a schedule for watching the monitors."

"Once we land," Tony argued, "we're going to have to recalibrate the scanners to try to get them focused on at least one of the areas where those plants were. You're going to need me for that. I can sleep after that."

The ship's scanners definitely hadn't been designed to be used as a surveillance system, but that didn't mean Tony couldn't make them work that way. After the ship was concealed in the canyon, it only took him an hour or so--with Bruce helping him, and Valkyrie or Thor watching the scanner screen and reporting on the effectiveness of their efforts--before he'd managed to tune the short-range scanners so that they'd give him what they needed. 

"I can see the burn area now," Thor said. "Just one of them, though, and not at very close range."

"Yeah," Tony said, emerging from under a console. "That would be because we're using a scanner meant for use in space, and we're at the bottom of a very steep, very narrow canyon. I'm not going to be able to get better range without a satellite relay, and guess what we don't have?"

"Don't you always say you could build anything?" Valkyrie said. 

"I could definitely build us a satellite," Tony said, "along with everything we'd need to launch it. But it'd take longer than forty-eight hours, considering that we're on a planet where I'd first have to invent multiple industries before I could get the parts, so this is what we get."

"I believe this will serve," Thor said. 

"Nobody expects you to work miracles." At Tony's expression, Bruce added, "Okay, we expect that from you at least once a week, but not for this."

Tony grinned. "Now that sounds more like it. Anyway, we're gambling that even if these guys start at a different patch, they'll check out all three of them when they see what we've done. They'll want to make sure they don't overlook anything they can salvage. I'm guessing that if they're illegal in a lot of the galaxy, the plants weren't cheap, and they'll want to make at least some of their money back. Or their employer will."

Valkyrie nodded. "From what I saw, there's at least a million units invested in this project. It'd have made at least twenty times that in profit, so they'll want to see if we missed anything at all that they can save."

"Then all we have to do is wait." Thor brought up a chart on the main display. "I went ahead and drew up a surveillance rota. It's dull work, and we'll have to be alert to the slightest sign that something's happening, so I've put us on two-hour shifts."

On the chart, Thor was down for the first shift, followed by Valkyrie, then Tony, Bruce, and finally Loki. "You're assuming you can get Loki to take part in this?" Tony asked. 

"King. Ship's captain. Older brother," Thor ticked off on his fingers. 

"Loki," Bruce countered. 

"If he doesn't, then we'll just start again with me after your shift." Thor shrugged. "You never know."

Thor wasn't wrong. His assumption that Loki would do his fair share on the ship, behave like a reasonable person when they were planetside, and not stab them in the back seemed to be working, after all. Maybe it wouldn't have, back before Asgard had been destroyed, but things had changed a lot. 

That was one of the reasons that everything that had happened yesterday was so damn complicated. 

But right now, Tony had four hours before he needed to be back out here to take his turn monitoring the screen. That was more hours of sleep he'd had in a row for a while, to be honest; low-tech worlds made him jumpy. 

He'd deal with everything else later. Right now, a sandwich followed by a nap was starting to sound really good.

****

Thor really hadn't been wrong; Loki had actually taken his place on the watch schedule. That made it easier for Tony to steer clear of him.

Not that avoiding Loki was his long term plan, but he needed to figure out what he wanted to say when they finally did talk. Thinking things out in advance--at least, things like this--wasn't really his style, as a rule, but Loki was so damn touchy that Tony didn't think he'd get more than one shot to get this right. 

If he didn't, it was going to make life on board very uncomfortable until the next time they went back to Earth. Even then, the only thing Tony could do would be to stay behind, and he didn't want to do that. He didn't think he was done with Earth for good, but he wasn't ready to go back yet, anyway. 

He wanted to get this right. 

He just wasn't completely sure what "right" would look like. 

Clearing the air so they could get things back to normal? He thought that was doable, and he wouldn't mind. He didn't have enough friends in the universe, especially not these days, and even Loki's weird kind of friendship was better than nothing. 

Acknowledging that while the circumstances hadn't been anything like ideal, he'd really enjoyed himself that night in the cabin, and he'd wanted more than that, before and afterward? Maybe. He didn't think Loki would object to that. 

Or... well, he might. Tony was pretty good at reading people's interest in him, or lack thereof, and he was convinced that Loki was interested. But that didn't mean that Loki would admit to being interested. 

Besides, Loki was difficult to read at the best of times. Actually, he was more difficult to read at the best of times. At his worst, Loki had been perfectly easy to decipher: he'd been a howling megalomaniac. It was when he was trying to be at least vaguely pleasant that it was hard to figure out what he was thinking. 

Admitting that he might want more than just sex? That was risky. Tony didn't mind a certain degree of risk, but he wasn't good with feeling emotionally vulnerable. It rarely ended well. And Loki wasn't the kind of person anyone should be making themselves vulnerable to. 

Tony was starting to think that was what he wanted to do, anyway. It was a terrible idea; he could see that. But maybe they could make it work, at least for a while.

Not until they were away from Atheron, though. The whole episode with the ligira plants had Loki in a terrible mood for the last day and a half--sullen and more prone to lashing out at them than normal, or at least than the new normal--to the point where even Thor, who'd had centuries to get used to Loki's moods, had had just about enough. 

Once this was over, Tony figured Loki's mood would improve, and then maybe Tony could talk to him. 

Whether or not he was actually going to go for what he wanted remained to be seen. Maybe he'd have an uncharacteristic fit of common sense, and he'd decide to return things to the status quo, or suggest something casual. 

Tony wasn't just sitting around brooding over Loki; on his off-watch periods, if he wasn't sleeping, he was in the engine room, taking advantage of the extra downtime to tinker. As long as they could get enough engine power to lift out of the canyon, he could take most of the systems offline, which was a bad idea in space, so there were a lot of things he could try that he'd been wanting to for a while. 

Right now, the tinkering wasn't going well (or, to take a more optimistic view of things, Tony had just successfully identified a lot of things that wouldn't work), and he emerged from one of the access panels accompanied by a shower of sparks. "God damn it," he grumbled. 

From the corner where Bruce had set up his makeshift chemistry lab, there was a short burst of laughter, then, "Ye cannae change the laws of physics," in a terrible attempt at a Scottish accent. 

"Says who? Anyway, isn't that usually the lead-in to changing the laws of physics?" Tony dusted himself off, grinning. Bruce was a good friend, but he was also someone roughly Tony's age, from Tony's planet, which meant that at least occasionally, pop-culture references weren't a total waste of time. 

Though he preferred to be the one making them, if only because Bruce was teasing him, and Tony liked being on the other side of that equation. 

"Besides," Tony went on, "I'm pretty sure I know where I went wrong."

"It's definitely the goatee," Bruce said, smiling. "Did I thank you yet for getting me those herb samples? There are some really interesting compounds in one of them. If we have a chance, I want to get a bigger supply, run some more tests, try to synthesize it. I think it might have anti-inflammatory properties." 

He probably would have gone into more detail, but Thor's voice on the ship's comms broke into their conversation. "We have movement." 

Tony and Bruce were the last two to arrive on the bridge. "Is it them?" Tony asked, taking his usual seat. 

"We think so." Thor gestured toward the screen. 

It wasn't up to Tony's usual standards for high-definition image quality--maybe that should be his next project--but the picture was still perfectly clear. There were three people digging through the burnt-out area. They were dressed in clothing whose cut suggested combat fatigue, maybe military issue. His best guess was two women and a man; they were wearing breathing masks, so it was hard to be completely sure. 

One of the women could have passed for an Earth human; the other was too tall, too thin, her skin a flat white that could only be achieved on Earth with heavy makeup. The man was human-sized, maybe a little on the squat and muscular side, but his hair looked more like feathers, and his skin was a deep purplish color. 

"Mercs," Valkyrie said. "I recognize their uniform. They're probably not the people behind the black-market ligira trade; they'd have been hired to do the grunt work. If they were given detailed instructions about planting and fertilizing, they could do it easily."

"These are definitely not locals," Tony agreed, "so they're probably our guys. The breathing masks and gloves, too--they're prepared for the pollen." 

"Preparing for take-off," Val said. "Everybody know the plan?" 

It wasn't all that much of a plan, but then, they didn't need all that much of one. Bruce was going to keep the ship in the air while the other four took care of the mercenaries. Between blasting the plants into ash, and last night's heavy rain, they were confident enough that there wouldn't be any pollen in the air that they weren't taking any breathing equipment with them (though Tony would be keeping his helmet on), but no one wanted even the slightest chance of finding out what ligira would do to the Hulk. 

They'd take the mercenaries down. Four to three was excellent odds, given that three of the four were incredibly strong and durable, not to mention trained in fighting, and the fourth had a suit of armor. Then they'd restrain their prisoners in the cargo hold, and then get them to Nova Corps as quickly as possible. 

That was the kind of thing they could do without hashing out every detail beforehand, especially since Tony, at least, didn't give a damn whether they hurt the mercs or not. Killing them was out unless it was self-defense, and he'd avoid seriously injuring them if at all possible, but he was fine with having to punch them in the face a few times. 

They were almost too late. The three mercenaries had apparently reached the conclusion that there was nothing to salvage and no clues to who had sabotaged their crop, because when Tony and the others hit the ground (well, the others hit the ground; Tony remained airborne), they had started into the woods, single-file. Whether they were going to check on one of the other patches or heading back to their ship, he didn't know. 

He did know they weren't expecting to be attacked. The locals hadn't even invented gunpowder yet, and the mercenaries had no reason to think that anyone from off-world knew about their little scheme. With the element of surprise working against them, they went down almost embarrassingly easily. 

Valkyrie was the fastest of their team; she got into place to take the merc on point position--the tall woman--down, while Thor subdued the second woman and Loki the man. Tony provided aerial support, sending repulsor blasts near--not quite at, but he bet it looked that way to the mercenaries--them any time they looked close to successfully making a break for it. 

Then, once everyone was restrained--Loki's magic was useful for things other than world domination and making a nuisance of himself, who knew?--Tony flew them up to the ship and into their mostly-unused cargo hold. There wasn't much there the mercenaries could use as a weapon even if they escaped the restraints, unless they were capable of weaponizing shelf-stable food packs. 

Once they were all back on board, they wasted no time in leaving the planet, in case some of that altercation had been seen by the locals. If they'd only caught glimpses, they might be able to explain it away somehow, or at least they wouldn't have enough evidence for anyone to believe their story.

"So," Tony said, as he brought up the internal surveillance to reveal three very sullen prisoners sitting on boxes of dehydrated vegetables, "before we hand them over to Nova Corps, do we question them first?" 

"To what end?" Thor asked. 

"So we know who they're working for? What they're up to?"

"Nova Corps will do that," Val said, propping her feet up on the communications console. "We don't have the firepower to go after an interplanetary crime syndicate, or even a single individual powerful and wealthy enough to set this up. And I don't recommend that we try to acquire that much firepower, either. There are only the five of us, and we have other obligations."

Tony started to say something, but she shook her head. "Yes, I know. You've done more with less. We all have. But not without a price, and this is the kind of thing Nova Corps exists for. We'll bring these three and the evidence we recorded. They can take it from there."

"Besides," Loki weighed in, "there's a very good chance that whoever these three are working for is someone we'd prefer remained unaware that we even exist." He and Valkyrie exchanged a glance. 

"Good point," Bruce said. "We've already pissed off enough very powerful people, not to mention some people who are probably trying to get back to being very powerful. Let's let Nova Corps do their job." 

Tony nodded. "You're probably not wrong. I just don't like standing back and letting someone else take care of a problem."

But it was definitely reasonable. Not that he was likely to let "we're grossly outnumbered" back him down from a fight if he thought it was necessary, but even back on Earth, there'd been plenty of times when it had made sense to let the police or SHIELD handle clean-up detail. 

They had more important things to do, anyway, things nobody else was going to do for them, like track down more rumors of Asgardians who'd been elsewhere in the galaxy when Hela arrived. 

Handing the prisoners over to Nova Corps meant that they could get on with the stuff that was more important to Thor and Asgard, and after all, this was the Asgardians' mission. Tony was just along for the ride.

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Next time** : Will Loki and Tony work out their shit? ...Okay, probably not in general, but maybe, in this one specific context!


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And this is it, the inevitable happy ending.

****

It turned out that cops were cops everywhere. Okay, these weren't as impressed by Tony as the NYPD tended to be, because somehow, not everyone in the galaxy had heard of either Tony Stark or Iron Man, but in general, they were about the same. Thor handed their prisoners and their video records over to Nova Corps, they all gave statements, and then they were free to leave.

But that meant that Tony had run out of excuses. He'd been telling himself that after they were done with this, everything with Loki would get back to normal, and then it would be easier to talk to him. 

He'd been half right. 

Loki was definitely back to normal. He still kept to himself a lot of the time, because that was a thing Loki did anyway, especially when Thor and Valkyrie were being more than usually exuberant about something. 

Right now, when they'd just found three wayward Asgardians, who had given them some information that might lead to finding a few more, Thor and Valkyrie were definitely exuberant. 

Tony didn't mind the nights of drinking; he just brought out something that was less likely to put him in a coma and didn't try to keep up. The loud cheerfulness on the mornings after (Val's was probably intended to be irritating; Thor's seemed to be natural), however, was enough to have him scowling at them and seeking the solitude of the engine room-slash-lab-slash-workshop. 

Loki didn't seem to be avoiding Tony any more. He'd even started showing up again while Tony was working, theoretically to "help" but mostly to annoy him. 

Tony was still pretty sure that they were flirting. 

But none of that had made it any easier to talk to Loki. It might even have made things more difficult, because Tony kept finding himself thinking that maybe the sensible decision would be to not stir things up just when they'd settled back down. 

Then he remembered that he was Tony Stark, and stirring things up was one of the things he did best. 

"Hey, Bruce," he said, "can you go and ask Thor how long it's going to be before our next planetfall?"

Bruce looked up from his microscope. "Or you could hit the intercom button and ask him yourself?"

"I think I'd feel better if you went and discussed it with him."

If he had to summarize the look Loki was giving him right now, it'd be something along the lines of, "Who the fuck do you think you're fooling with this, Stark?"

Which was, in fact, a valid question. 

"No one in this room," was the answer. 

"You know," Bruce said, getting down from his stool and stretching, "you could have just asked me to give you the room. Trust me, I don't want to be here for this any more than you want me here." 

The next time Bruce was painfully awkward about somebody--and there would probably be a next time; Tony had seen him with Natasha, and he'd nearly died of secondhand embarrassment--Tony wasn't even going to try to be tactful and sympathetic. It would serve Bruce right. 

But then Bruce was gone, and Tony spun his own stool around so that he could look directly at Loki. "I suppose you're all wondering why I called you here today," he said, and then paused, waiting for a reaction.

Loki frowned. "I presume that's some sort of Earth reference. Are you ever going to learn that not only do I not understand those, I don't care?"

"Probably not," Tony said cheerfully. "Are you going to tell me why you were avoiding me?"

"Probably not," Loki echoed. "If you can't figure that out, perhaps you aren't as intelligent as I thought you were. Which, let me make perfectly clear, is already nowhere near as clever as _you_ think you are."

"What, I'm supposed to believe this is all just, 'we had sex and that's awkward'? Nah. For one thing, why is it awkward? I'm the one who suggested it. You were going to have us, you know, go it alone. You could have told me that was what you preferred, except you didn't."

"I'm not stupid enough to reject a superior option when it presents itself," Loki said. "I made that suggestion to spare your sensibilities. When you turned out not to have any..." He shrugged slightly. "I knew it would be easier to cope with the effects that way, so why would I say no?"

"Okay, but that still doesn't explain why you were avoiding me."

"Is that what I was doing?"

"Yes?" Tony considered for a moment. "Or avoiding everyone, not just me?"

"That's closer to accurate. Still incorrect, though." 

"Closer, but not the truth," Tony said. "So it isn't me, and it isn't everyone, and you know Thor will just come and find you and annoy you until you either stab him or tell him what he wants. Bruce? No, you and Bruce mostly leave each other alone anyway. So you're avoiding Valkyrie."

And then everything clicked in Tony's mind, forming a horrible, clear picture. 

"You're avoiding Val because she was around the last time you ran into this stuff."

"That's not precisely what happened," Loki admitted, "but it's close enough."

Yeah, that was close enough. Tony wasn't really a "let's talk about our past trauma" kind of guy. For one thing, between him and pretty much everyone else he knew, if they got started, they'd never stop. 

For another, if he made Loki talk about this, Loki might expect Tony to do the same thing--if not today, another time--and _hell, no_. 

"I survived, obviously," Loki said, "and I learned a valuable lesson about how far I could push... a particular individual. Thor and Dr. Banner have only superficial knowledge where he's concerned, but the Valkyrie is even more well-acquainted with his methods than I am." 

He let out a long, somewhat unsteady breath. "I preferred not to dwell on it." 

"Yeah, I get it," Tony said. He'd heard enough about how Thor and Val had met to be able to put two and two together and come up with "what the fuck is wrong with that guy?" 

"No dwelling necessary," he went on. "I'm not here to talk about the past. I'm here to talk about--well, us."

That earned him a raised eyebrow. "Us?" Loki repeated. "And what about 'us' requires discussion?"

"I have a proposition," he said. "Really, two propositions."

"I've had the opportunity to watch you in every bar and tavern in this part of the galaxy. You generally do have a proposition or two, even though most people are wise enough to turn you down." 

"Not like that." He paused. "Okay, exactly like that, except that what you've seen has mainly been just fun and games, and there's a little more behind this." Loki didn't stop him, so he continued. "Proposition one: we acknowledge that, aphrodisiac pollen aside, that was actually pretty fun, and we might consider doing it again?"

Loki tilted his head to one side slightly, studying Tony's face. "And the second one?"

"We do that, but we also consider the possibility of something beyond good sex."

"No suggestions where we don't have sex at all, I notice."

Tony laughed. "No way. I mean, sure, if you tell me sex is off the table, I'll drop it, but none of my ideas are going to involve us not having sex again. That was fun, and there are all kinds of reasons why I think you're the logical choice for that kind of fun." 

"Oh, really? I think I'd like to hear those reasons." 

Tony picked up a partly-assembled component from the workbench and started fidgeting with it. "First of all, assuming that I'm looking for an ongoing--let's say 'situation,' since we're still talking about just sex here--that leaves out anybody I might meet along the way. Val is either not into men at all, or 'not into men, but she'd make an exception for Thor,' I haven't decided which yet. Either way, I'm a man who isn't Thor, so that leaves me out." 

Loki considered that for a moment. "If I placed a bet, it would be on the latter. You might be surprised how many people have made all sorts of exceptions for Thor, over the years." 

Tony could see that. Thor wasn't really Tony's type, but he could definitely see how Thor could be the exception to a lot of people's rules. 

"Anyway," Tony went on, "I'm not making an exception for Thor, so that leaves him out." 

"You're attracted to men," Loki said, "and you aren't allergic to heroism. What sort of exception would you need to make?"

"I don't like blonds," Tony said flippantly. He looked away, even though Loki probably didn't care enough to try to pick at the truth underneath the smart-ass line.

It turned out that was a good decision, because when Loki spoke again, his voice was different. Familiar, but definitely not Loki's voice. Or his accent, unless Loki was secretly from Brooklyn. "That wasn't my impression."

Tony didn't let himself turn to look. "Drop it." 

"Touchy." But it was Loki's voice again, so Tony forced himself to release the tension in the shoulders. 

He took a deep breath. "Yeah, well, everybody in this room is touchy about something, right?"

"True enough," Loki acknowledged. "All right. You aren't interested in Thor, and I suspect that's mutual."

"And Bruce is my friend," Tony said. "I don't have enough of those to fuck things up with one of them." Besides, Loki didn't need to know that he'd made a pass at Bruce once, when they were working on the project that turned out to be Ultron, and had been gently but firmly turned down. He'd never been given any indication that Bruce's answer had changed, so he'd left it alone from then on. 

"But I, not being your friend, present no such risk."

Tony shrugged. "Or maybe it's just that the risk has already been taken? I mean, if it's going to fuck up our..." Yeah, he was going to call it what it was. "Our friendship, then it probably already has." 

"For someone who favors pointless prattle most of the time, you're remarkably cogent when you're trying to convince someone to go to bed with you." Tony risked a glance at Loki; he was smiling. 

That wasn't necessarily reassuring. 

"Yeah, well, I can focus pretty damn well when it's something important to me." He grinned. "So that's one reason why you. Reason number two, we've already had sex, and it was good, even with all the disadvantages of that particular situation. On a bed, under better circumstances, with lube so that I can convince you to fuck me?" He let himself smirk at Loki. "Pretty sure we're going to be phenomenal." 

That was definitely interest in Loki's expression, but his voice was still cool as he said, "Two is hardly 'all kinds of reasons.'" 

"Okay, maybe I only have three," Tony admitted. 

"And the third would be?"

"You're hot?" Loki laughed, and Tony just kept grinning at him. "I didn't say it wasn't a shallow reason. Actually, let me amend that one. You're hot, and you're good company. Lots of people are hot. I don't want to--I don't seriously want to have sex with most of them." 

He could almost feel Rhodey ruffling his hair and making cracks about how his little Tony was growing up, almost a mature adult these days.

Damn, he missed Rhodey. Maybe they'd be headed back to Earth soon. Tony wasn't planning to stay there for good yet, at least, not unless this particular plan of his failed dramatically, but there were some people he'd like to visit: Rhodey, the kid, Pepper, Happy. He'd like to reassure himself that they were all okay; reassure them that _he_ was okay. 

And he was getting off track. Of course he was; his brain was very good at throwing distractions at him when it was afraid he was going to humiliate himself, or get hurt, or both. 

Not that he was going to get hurt. He wasn't going to let himself be vulnerable enough to get hurt. And he wasn't going to acknowledge that was bullshit, either. 

"Three still isn't 'all kinds of reasons,'" Loki argued, "but I suppose I'll make allowances for your tendency toward exaggeration." 

"I don't care how many reasons I have," Tony said. "The more important question is how convincing you're finding them." 

"You're... not unamusing," Loki said. "And for a mortal, not unattractive, either."

Tony was about to protest, but then realized that by human standards, every Asgardian he'd met had been somewhere on the "hot" end of the spectrum. .Even the ones who'd been living rough on low-tech planets for the past year or more. "Okay, so I don't break mirrors, and you like laughing at me. Is that enough for you?"

It was enough for Tony. If he wanted somebody who was impressed by him, he could go back to Earth. There were definitely people there who'd be more than happy to be with him, just because he was Tony Stark. 

They just weren't always happy to stick around once they figured out that the Tony Stark they thought they knew was more like "Tony StarkTM," and the reality was more of a mess. 

On the other hand, "You're not ugly, and sometimes you're funny," wouldn't be anything that would lead to disappointment once Loki got to know him better. 

Loki already knew the real Tony, at least to some extent. And it wasn't like Loki wasn't an even bigger mess than he was. So maybe that could work. 

"Actually," Loki said, sounding genuinely surprised, "I believe it might be." 

Tony slid down off his stool and went over to Loki. With the other man still sitting on his own tall stool, they were about eye to eye. That worked pretty well for what Tony had in mind. 

"I didn't get to take my time with this the other night," Tony said, putting a hand on the back of Loki's neck and pulling him in for a kiss. 

He'd have thought--well, he wasn't entirely sure what he was expecting, but Loki being okay with even that fleeting loss of control wasn't it. He seemed to be more than okay with it, though, grabbing a double handful of Tony's shirt to haul him closer, shifting to make space for Tony to stand between Loki's knees, as close as they could get to one another without Tony actually being in Loki's lap. 

He briefly considered that as an option, but no, not in here. It'd be too easy to overbalance the stool, and he didn't want to end up on the floor with Loki. 

He wanted to end up in his bed. Or in Loki's bed. It didn't really matter which, except that Tony knew he had some lube in his cabin--a guy had needs, even if he was the only one satisfying them--and the situation in Loki's was as yet unknown. Still, he was nothing if not flexible here. Either room would work. If there wasn't any lube, there were still plenty of other things they could do. 

"We should probably go somewhere else," Tony suggested. "Bruce is going to get tired of being tactfully elsewhere before too long."

"He's not going to risk coming back in here," Loki said. "He did see through that flimsy little ruse of yours."

"I know, but he's going to want to get back to work. We should probably let him." He grinned at Loki. "Tell me if I'm being too subtle for you." 

Loki snorted. He'd probably claim it was disgust, and not in an attempt to suppress laughter, but Tony wasn't going to believe him. "You're not even being too subtle for Thor." 

"And yet, you're still pretending to miss the point. Your place or mine?"

"Mine," Loki said firmly. "The last time your door was open when I walked past your cabin, there were engine parts spread over your bed."

"There aren't any there now."

"Mine," he repeated. "At least I know my bed has never been used as a workbench."

Tony couldn't resist. "Too bad, because I had a tool I was planning on trying out there."

"What fool ever told you that you're funny?"

"You, for one," Tony reminded him. "Secretly, you love it." 

"You're pushing your luck. And do you really want to stand here and banter with me when my cabin is just around the corner?"

Nope. Definitely not. Tony could continue this conversation once they were in Loki's cabin and naked. Loki's sense of humor would probably improve after he got laid, too, or at least he'd be feeling positively enough toward Tony to not be totally annoyed by Tony's bad jokes. 

"I'm right behind you," Tony said, but he kissed Loki again first. 

Loki's cabin wasn't that much different than Tony's; that wasn't much of a surprise, since there were only six sets of living quarters, and apart from the captain's cabin, they were basically identical. Even the captain's suite, which Thor had taken, was only slightly larger, and most of that was that the attached bathroom had its own shower facilities. 

The ship had originally belonged to a crew who had spent most of their time in space, so while the furnishings were basic, they were comfortable. The bunks were a little wider and longer than a twin bed; there was plenty of space for one person to stretch out, and there'd be room for two as long as they didn't mind being close. 

Given what they were in here to do, Tony wasn't going to object to being close. 

Tony didn't know what he'd expected in the way of personalization; his own room was mostly the way he'd found it, except for his clothes and the bits and pieces of whatever he was working on. None of them had gone to any great effort to make their rooms very homelike, at least not that Tony had seen. 

Loki had acquired a heavy green spread for his bed, rather than the standard-issue thin gray ones--why was Tony not surprised?--but otherwise, it could have been anyone's room. There were a couple of books on the shelf near the bed, a few personal items scattered throughout the room, but--

Tony didn't know what he'd been expecting. Maybe something more... sorcerer-y. Whatever that was. 

On the other hand, the bed had been made, which Tony's hadn't today (he only tended to make it when he needed a clear space for working). And the bed was the only thing he was really interested in, at least for today. 

And the bed was what he was being backed towards, slowly and surely, while Loki kissed him. When the back of his knees hit the mattress, Tony let himself drop backward onto it, looking up at Loki with what he was pretty sure there was a dopey grin on his face. 

"Come on," he said. "That whole night on Atheron, I kept thinking how much better it would be in an actual bed, where we could be comfortable. I'm really looking forward to testing that hypothesis."

"Then perhaps you should do something about your clothing," Loki said, beginning to undress himself. 

"I like that idea." Tony unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off. "Got somewhere I can put this other than the floor?"

"On the chair," Loki suggested, folding his own clothes and putting them on top of the low dresser that each of the cabins was equipped with. 

Tony got off the bed and draped his shirt over the back of the chair, then added his pants and underwear. His shoes went under the chair, out of the way since there wasn't that much floor space. He'd tripped over his own things before; in an unfamiliar room, it'd be even more likely. 

His back was to Loki, but an appreciative hum from behind him made him turn around. 

"I hadn't had a chance to enjoy the view before now," Loki said, with a definitely wicked smile. "There wasn't enough light in that cabin."

"Keep enjoying." He turned his back to Loki again, bending down to make sure that Loki got an excellent view of his ass. He wasn't vain--okay, yes, he was definitely vain, but he'd had other people confirm that it was one of his better features, too, so this wasn't just his vanity. 

Anyway, if Loki liked looking at him, it was only polite to give him a chance to look. 

"I like the view," Loki said, "but I'd prefer to see you on your back, in the bed, right now. If that's acceptable?"

Tony pretended to consider for a moment. "I guess I could do that," he said, getting back on the bed. He raised himself up on his elbows to make it easier for him to look at Loki, because fair was fair, right? 

Besides, he hadn't gotten the chance to do enough looking the other night, either, and he definitely thought Loki was worth looking at. Tony didn't have a type, exactly, except "hot people are hot," but Loki was a very good example of the type he didn't have.

"This is a pretty good view, too," he said. "But I'd prefer to see you over here. On top of me, to be specific."

That was apparently exactly what Loki had been waiting to hear, because he tossed the last bit of clothing onto the dresser and joined Tony on the bed, planting his knees on either side of Tony's hips, bending down to kiss Tony again, this time hard and deep, drawing little whimpers out of Tony. 

Oh. Oh, God. Yeah, this was a good idea. This was a brilliant idea. This was the best idea he'd had since "maybe I should take Thor up on his offer to see the galaxy," and that had been a fantastic idea, even for him. 

"I'm going to take you apart," Loki murmured. "You're going to beg me for mercy before I'm done with you."

Coming from Loki, that should probably be terrifying. Hell, maybe it was, a little. 

Maybe the "still a little terrifying" part was a turn-on. It wasn't like Tony didn't already know he was somewhat fucked up. 

"You think so, huh?" Tony said, reaching up to pull Loki down to him again. "I should probably point out that I'm horny, impatient, and have terrible impulse control. It's going to be easy enough to make me beg that it might not be that much fun for you." 

Loki laughed. "What about that sounds like I wouldn't enjoy it? Making you wait for what you obviously want?" He reached between their bodies, stroking Tony's half-hard cock. "Listening to you beg and plead while I take my time, keeping you desperate and needy but never giving you quite enough?" He kissed Tony again, slow, filthy kisses that dragged more moans from Tony as he arched up against Loki. 

"I thought you weren't supposed to be evil these days," Tony said, clutching at Loki, his fingers digging into Loki's back. 

Loki's expression was the picture of outraged innocence, though he couldn't quite keep the amusement out of his voice. "And how is this evil? Unless you're primitive enough to think there's something evil about sex, I suppose."

"Nah, I'm okay with that," he said. "I mean, except for the part where you won't get on with it."

Loki kissed him again, then dragged his lips down from Tony's mouth, planting more kisses on Tony's jaw and neck. 

Huh. Despite all of Loki's words, Tony had halfway been expecting something fast and rough, though he realized now that it was partly because of their experiences in that cabin. It stood to reason, he told himself, that the way someone behaved while under the influence of some kind of aphrodisiac wasn't necessarily how they'd act normally. 

"Fast and rough" didn't describe what was happening now, that was for sure. Loki's mouth was moving almost agonizingly slowly down Tony's body, kissing what felt like every inch of exposed skin. Each of Tony's numerous scars got special attention, Loki's tongue tracing over the marks. 

That wasn't something Tony was used to. None of the people he'd slept with since Afghanistan had complained about the scars or flinched away from them, but they either ignored them or regarded them with pity. Loki wasn't ignoring them, and the flashes of heat in his eyes were definitely not pity. 

Something of Tony's curiosity must have showed in his expression, because Loki shrugged slightly. "Mortals scar so easily," he said. "So many of these might have killed you, but here you are."

Squirming a little under the intensity of Loki's gaze, Tony shrugged a little. "You know what they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

He wasn't prepared for that to be answered with a genuine-looking smile. "Then you must be very strong indeed." Then Loki went back to his work, moving further down Tony's chest and to his stomach. 

Tony shivered slightly at the sensation. 

"Oh, are you ticklish?"

"Don't you dare."

"I won't now, but I'm definitely going to remember this for later." He kept moving downward. 

Tony's cock was fully hard, and Loki's mouth moved closer to it, Tony raised his hips a little, trying to encourage Loki to give it some attention. For one brief moment, he thought he was going to get what he wanted, but then Loki only licked one stripe along the length of Tony's shaft before turning his attention to an exploration of his hipbone. 

"Oh, come on," Tony muttered.

"I told you I was going to enjoy making you wait for what you want."

"If you can't count on the god of lies to lie to you, what good are you?"

"Oh, I'm probably going to lie to you. Frequently, enthusiastically, and expertly. But right this moment, I mean every word I said. I plan to reduce you to a desperate, begging mess."

"And then you're going to fuck me, right?"

"And then, if you're very good, I might consider doing that." He smirked at Tony. "Possibly."

"I hate you." Tony slumped back down on the bed. 

"Of course you do." Loki went back to work, making his way down Tony's leg, then back up the other leg to Tony's hip again. Another brief moment of attention to Tony's cock, this time a flick of his tongue against the head, and then he sat up, ignoring Tony's whine of protest. 

"Turn over," he said. "There's still quite a bit of you I haven't investigated yet."

Tony turned onto his stomach, pillowing his head on his folded arms. At least this way, he'd be able to get some friction against the mattress, if Loki wasn't going to do anything about his erection. 

Loki knelt astride Tony again, pinning him down against the mattress. The solid weight of him felt good, and the feeling of Loki's breath hot against the back of Tony's neck made him shiver pleasurably again. He shifted his own weight, pressing into the mattress, and Loki chuckled. 

"You know, you could always try asking for what you want."

"You know what I want. You could just give it to me." He could feel Loki's cock pressing against him, sliding against his ass whenever Loki leaned forward to kiss him or nip at the skin at the nape of Tony's neck. "I mean, you obviously want it too."

"I'm a great deal more patient than you are."

"Or you just like torturing me."

"You could also ask me to stop."

"Ugh. Yeah, I definitely hate you right now," he said. Instead of pushing himself into the mattress, this time he pushed upward, grinding his ass against Loki's cock until Loki groaned. 

"Look," Tony said, trying to sound completely reasonable, "I get the appeal of turning me into a whimpering mess. I really do. But maybe next time? Because don't even try to tell me there's not going to be a next time. We both know there is." He pushed back against Loki again. "And right now, you want to be fucking me, and we both know that, too." 

"Are you always this demanding?"

"Get used to it, princess. This is going to be your life from now on." 

Loki's weight moved off of him, and for a second, Tony thought he'd miscalculated, and that Loki had decided he didn't like the sound of that. Which, obviously, would have been a terrible decision for Loki as well as for Tony, but it wasn't like Loki didn't have a past littered with terrible decisions. 

"I should have thought about this more," Loki said. "You aren't going to stop being obnoxious because we're doing this, are you?"

"Are you?"

Loki laughed and then kissed Tony's neck again, then his ear. "Would you want me to?"

"I wouldn't know what to do with you if you weren't annoying."

"Likewise. But," he went on, his voice still right in Tony's ear, "I know exactly what to do with you right now."

Then Loki's weight shifted on the bed again, and Tony realized that he'd gone to get something from the dresser. Okay, apparently Loki's cabin was as well-stocked as his own was. Good. 

Tony decided that if Loki liked him annoying, then it would be perfectly reasonable to let Loki do all the work. When Loki asked him to, he got up on his knees, planting them further apart on the bed to make Loki's job a little easier, but then he tried his best to lie there calmly as Loki pressed one slippery finger against Tony's hole. 

"I assume, from your eagerness, that you're not completely inexperienced with this," Loki said, "but let me know how much time you need me to take with this part."

Tony considered for a second or two. He'd had plenty of experience, even once he and Pepper had settled down--they'd had a well-stocked toy box, and he'd kept it in use after the two of them had broken up, as well--and he had a couple of toys in his quarters that he'd bought when he'd had time to kill once in an interesting part of town during one planetfall. He'd be fine. 

Also, he really wanted Loki to be fucking him, like, yesterday, and would be prepared to suffer a little discomfort in the pursuit of a noble cause. "Not much," he said. "Just get me good and slick."

Loki pressed inside him, and Tony made himself breathe deeply, trying to stay relaxed. He wasn't nervous about what they were about to do, or at least, not about the physical act of getting fucked. 

He was nervous about this whole "getting involved with Loki" thing, even though at this point it was a little late for him to start worrying. 

But Loki's finger kept working its way deep inside him--withdrawing once, then returning with a fresh application of lubricant--and warmth was spreading through his body as he let himself enjoy the sensations.

"I'm ready," he said after a little while.

"You're quite sure?"

Tony twisted so that Loki could get the full force of his glare. "If you don't fuck me right now," he said, "I'm probably going to have to kill you."

"It's been tried before," Loki said, sounding not even remotely contrite. "But if you insist--"

"I do."

Loki pulled his finger out, and a moment or two later, Tony felt the head of Loki's cock breaching him. He sucked in an involuntary hiss of breath, and Loki paused. 

"I'm good," Tony said. "I knew I should have gone with the bigger dildo, but I didn't want to have to tell Thor that I was late to the rendezvous point because I was having trouble making a decision at an alien sex-toy shop." Besides, he'd wasted a lot of time being bewildered by some of the toys they'd stocked and trying to figure out what configuration of anatomy would call for that particular shape. 

"You'll have to correct that little oversight the next time we're on a suitably advanced planet," Loki said. He held still for several more seconds, and Tony concentrated on relaxing. 

"I'm good," he said again. "You can definitely do more than that."

"Are you trying to annoy me into fucking you?"

"Is it working? If so, definitely. If not, nope, of course not, why would you think that?"

Loki didn't answer, just started pushing deeper inside Tony. He was going slowly enough that Tony had plenty of time to adjust; in fact, in Tony's opinion, he was going much too slowly. He pushed back against Loki, trying to urge him on. 

It didn't take them long to find a rhythm, Tony meeting Loki's thrusts easily, and for once, neither of them had that much to say for himself, conversation giving way to murmured words of approval and moans of pleasure. 

Loki's hand snaked around Tony's hip, wrapping around Tony's cock and giving him something to thrust against. "God, yeah," Tony said, closing his eyes. "That's it, just--"

He was about to complain that Loki's hand had stilled its motion when Loki thrust into him again, hard and deep; he could feel Loki shudder as he came. 

Tony gave him a few seconds to collect himself, then thrust into Loki's fist again. "Come on, don't stop now."

After another second or two, Loki's hand started moving again, and Tony began to fuck his fist in earnest until he came, his moans muffled by the pillow. 

They collapsed together on the bed, and if they had to curl close together to both fit comfortably, well, Tony wasn't going to object.

****

Tony had half-expected to be unceremoniously kicked out of Loki's room at some point during the night, but when he woke up, it was early morning, ship's time, and not only had he not been sent back to his cabin, but Loki hadn't found an excuse to leave, either.

Tony wasn't going to mention that they were tangled together in the bed, Tony's head resting against Loki's shoulder. He suspected that if he did, he'd never get the chance to do this again.

"Are you awake?" Loki asked. 

"Reluctantly, but yes." He turned so that he could kiss Loki. "I should probably go." He didn't want to, but there were things he needed to do. He'd left his work half-finished yesterday, and while those weren't absolutely vital components of the ship's systems--it was a redundant part of the water recycling system--he really shouldn't leave them for too long. That was just an invitation to disaster. 

Loki stretched, and Tony let himself look all he wanted at the long, lean muscles of Loki's torso. "I'll be by later to make certain you're not destroying everything."

Tony laughed. "Is that what you think you're doing?"

"Of course. What did you think I was doing?"

"Admiring my brilliance?"

"Of course you did. No one has ever accused you of modesty, have they?"

"it's one of the few things they haven't ever accused me of," he admitted. "But anyway, yeah, come by any time. I'd hate to think what I might get up to without proper supervision."

He got up, stretching, and pulled his clothes on quickly. "I'm going to get cleaned up and changed, maybe stop by the galley and get something to eat. We missed dinner last night." 

"Don't let me keep you here," Loki said, but he pulled Tony back down for a long, lingering kiss before he let him go. 

Tony's feelings of good cheer and general well-being, also known as "I just got laid and it was great," lasted all the way until he got to the galley and discovered that he wasn't the only person who was in there having breakfast. 

No one seemed to be sharing his good mood. Val glared at him, Bruce gave him a long-suffering look, and Thor shook his head, looking like he was about to start laughing. 

"Hey guys," Tony said. "What's up?"

"I'm not touching that," Bruce said, the words directed to his plate. 

"I have a project for you, Stark," Thor said, still looking entirely too amused. Tony wondered if he was going to be let in on the joke any time soon. 

"Yeah, okay," Tony said. "I need to finish up the backup water recycler, but after that, I'm all yours. Unless it's an emergency?"

"Soundproofing," Thor said. "For the crew cabins."

It took a moment for that to sink in, and then it all connected: Bruce's expression, Valkyrie's annoyance, Thor's amusement. 

He had a couple of options. He could be embarrassed, he could pretend ignorance, or he could be amused right along with Thor. 

He went with option C. "Yeah," he said, snickering. "You're probably going to want that pretty regularly."

As often as Loki was going to let him, anyway, which was probably going to be fairly often, if last night was any indication. 

He still hated those damn plants, but he was willing to admit that they might have done him a favor.

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everybody who's been reading! 
> 
> I have another Loki/Tony fic completed, but it's destined for the Iron Man Big Bang, which doesn't start posting until late May, so it'll be May or June before that goes up. (I have a lot of other completed fic that will be posted between now and then, just not Loki/Tony.) After that... well, there's a massive multi-ship AU fic that does have Loki/Tony as one of the main, endgame, pairings, but heaven knows how long it's going to take me and my co-writer to get 200K words edited into a coherent whole. :) 
> 
> I'm still around, still happily shipping these two, considering branching out into some other parts of the Marvel universe with them (AA, and also Kibblesmith's Loki run was inspiring).

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found [on Dreamwidth](https://mireille719.dreamwidth.org/).


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